Kiwifruit genomics and applications: recent advances, current challenges, and future prospects

Abstract

Kiwifruit ( Actinidia spp.) is a globally significant horticultural crop, renowned for its exceptional nutritional value and high vitamin C content. The distinctive genetic features of this genus, including a dioecious sexual system (XY/XX) and a wide range of ploidy (2 x–10 x), have driven substantial genomic and phenotypic diversification, thereby constituting a valuable germplasm resource for systematic breeding. Recent advances in kiwifruit genomics are transforming the field and revolutionizing our understanding of its evolution, domestication, and the genetic mechanisms underlying agronomic traits. In this review, we highlight the key achievements in kiwifruit genome research over the past decades, chronologically spanning from the initial draft genome assembly to the recent super pan–genome construction. We further synthesize how multi-omics approaches have been leveraged for fine mapping, gene discovery, and the analysis of gene expression and metabolic pathways. Finally, we discuss future research directions and breeding strategies enabled by these genomic breakthroughs, particularly through the applications of genomic selection and gene editing in kiwifruit.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32472680 and U23A20204), Anhui Provincial Natural Science Foundation (2308085MC69), Key Scientific Research Foundation of the Education Department of Province Anhui (2024AH050452), and China-Zimbabwe Belt and Road Joint Laboratory on Agricultural Ecology and Cash Crops (2024YFE0214500).

Author contributions

J.Y. planned the outline of the review. M.U.F., X.L., J.S., X.W., Z.F., X.H., and L.W. collected the relevant literature. J.Y., M.U.F., X.L., and J.S. wrote the first draft of the manuscript. Y.L. (Yanfei), W.L., W.T., P.L., Y.S., and X.Q. reviewed the initial draft and provided constructive feedback. C.H.D., D.L., X.Y., and Y.L. (Yongsheng) critically reviewed, revised, and improved the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final version.

Conflicts of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Supplementary material

Supplementary material is available at Horticulture Research online.

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