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澳大利亚科学与工业研究院研究人员发现了决定苹果颜色的基因定位，这个发现可能会给我们带来新的苹果变种。

颜色是水果市场中非常重要的一部分，直接刺激消费者的购买欲。据澳大利亚科学与工业研究院植物业研究组组长Mandy Walker博士介绍，苹果的红色是花青素作用的结果，许多花和果实的蓝色和红色都依赖于这种天然植物化合物的作用。花青素除了能将苹果染成红色以外，还是有利于健康的抗氧化剂。

研究组中的Adam Takos博士后用最新分子技术检测了在苹果果皮成熟和着色过程中被激活或表达的特殊基因的量，他指出苹果中存在控制花青素形成的基因。苹果的颜色依赖于光照，苹果在暗处生长或甚至是严重的遮盖都会使其在成熟时不变红，Walker博士根据这个发现了这个基因在青苹果中没有在红苹果中表达多。

在与西澳洲农业与食品部的苹果培育人员合作中，科学家能够在播种前通过检测基因型而预测水果的颜色。这些关于苹果颜色如何调控的新理论，使得苹果培育者能够用这些分子标志物检测来加速苹果培育和选择更好的苹果颜色。Walker博士相信这项研究能够给培育新的苹果变种打开方便之门。她说：“弄清楚了苹果颜色如何调控之后，我们可以开始培育新的感兴趣的变种，我们就可能培育出更好的，更健康的水果！”

Public release date: 30-Nov-2006
Contact: Sophie Clayton
Sophie.Clayton@csiro.au
61-262-465-139
CSIRO Australia

Found -- the apple gene for red
CSIRO researchers have located the gene that controls the colour of apples – a discovery that may lead to bright new apple varieties.

"The red colour in apple skin is the result of anthocyanins, the natural plant compounds responsible for blue and red colours in many flowers and fruits," says the leader of the CSIRO Plant Industry research team, Dr Mandy Walker.

"Colour is a very important part of fruit marketing," she says. "If fruit doesn't look good, consumers are far less likely to buy it, no matter how good it might taste.

"As well as giving apples their rosy red hue, anthocyanins are also antioxidants with healthy attributes, giving us plenty of reasons to study how the biochemical pathway leading to apple colour is regulated."

A Post Doctoral Fellow with the team, Dr Adam Takos, used the latest molecular technology to measure how much particular genes were activated, or expressed, in apple skin as the fruit ripened and coloured.

"Apple growers have always known that apple colour is dependant on light – apples grown in darkness or even heavy shade don't turn red when they ripen," Dr Walker says. "That made it very likely that the gene we were looking for requires light to be activated."

"By identifying master genes that were activated by light, Adam was able to pinpoint the gene that controls the formation of anthocyanins in apples, and we found that in green apples this gene is not expressed as much as in red apples."

In collaboration with apple breeders at the Department of Agriculture and Food in Western Australia (DAFWA), the scientists were able to show that fruit colour can be predicted even in seedling apple plants by measuring the form of this gene that is present.

The new knowledge about how apple colour is regulated will give plant breeders the opportunity to use these molecular marker tests to speed up apple breeding and select for improved fruit colour. Dr Walker believes that this research could open the way to breeding new apple varieties.

"With a better understanding of how apple colour is controlled we can begin to breed apples with new and interesting colour variations," she says. "We may even be able to breed apples that are better for you, though they already play an important role in a healthy diet!"

The research is a collaboration between CSIRO and the DAFWA, which has partly funded the project with a voluntary contribution. The project has been facilitated by Horticulture Australia Ltd (HAL) in partnership with industry and has been funded as part of HAL's 'across industry program'. The Australian Government provides matched funding for all HAL's research and development activities.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-11/ca-ft113006.php

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