QTL detection and candidate gene analysis of grape white rot resistance by interspecific grape (Vitis vinifera L. × Vitis davidii Foex.) crossing

Abstract

Grape white rot, a devastating disease of grapevines caused by Coniella diplodiella (Speg.) Sacc., leads to significant yield losses in grape. Breeding grape cultivars resistant to white rot is essential to reduce the regular use of chemical treatments. In recent years, Chinese grape species have gained more attention for grape breeding due to their high tolerance to various biotic and abiotic factors along with changing climatic conditions. In this study, we employed whole-genome resequencing (WGR) to genotype the parents of ‘Manicure Finger’ (Vitis vinifera, female) and ‘0940’ (Vitis davidii, male), along with 101 F₁ mapping population individuals, thereby constructing a linkage genetic map. The linkage map contained 9337 single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers with an average marker distance of 0.3 cM. After 3 years of phenotypic evaluation of the progeny for white rot resistance, we confirmed one stable quantitative trait locus (QTL) for white rot resistance on chromosome 3, explaining up to 17.9% of the phenotypic variation. For this locus, we used RNA-seq to detect candidate gene expression and identified PR1 as a candidate gene involved in white rot resistance. Finally, we demonstrated that recombinant PR1 protein could inhibit the growth of C. diplodiella and that overexpression of PR1 in susceptible V. vinifera increased grape resistance to the pathogen.

Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2021YFD1200200), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31872057), the China Agriculture Research System (CARS-29), and the Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program (CAAS-ASTIP-2021-ZFRI).

Author contributions

Y.Z., C.L., and J.L. designed the research and experiments. P.L., X.T., and R.L. assisted with phenotyping experiments. F.R., J.J., L.S., and X.F. helped in the extraction of DNA and RNA. P.L. analyzed the data and drafted the article. Y.Z., C.L., and J.L. contributed to the manuscript’s revision.

Data availability

All the data can be found in the main text or the supplements.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interests.

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