Comparative study on berry development of two grape cultivars by transcriptomic analyses [Victoria]

Grape berry development is a highly coordinated, intricate and complex process with many morphological, biochemical and physiological changes occurring during the ripening process. Equally, ripening is an organoleptic characteristic linked to fruit development. The fruits Seedless (FS) and Victoria (VT) grape varieties exhibit many morphological and phytochemical differences, but genetic mechanisms underlying them remain poorly explored. Herein, we comparatively analysed the phenotypic and transcriptomic patterns of Victoria (VT) and Flame Seedless (FS) grape varieties during berry development. We studied the physiological analysis and transcriptomic profiles sequencing were performed at four berry developmental stages time-points (40, 50, 60 and 80 DPA). Notably, the VT variety berry size was comparatively larger to the FS variety. At maturity, 80DPA, the FS soluble solids were 61.8% higher than VT. Further, a total of 4889 and 2802 DEG's were identified from VT and FS 40 DPA to 80 DPA development stages, respectively. 1386 DEGs were common in the two varieties. GO analysis identified Cysteine biosynthetic process, response to red light, chlorophyll binding, polysaccharide biosynthetic process and chloroplast thylakoid membrane as some of the dominant terms under the biological processes, molecular function and cellular component categories. Overall design: Transcriptome analysis for berry development of two grape cultivars,in triplicate, using Illumina HiSeq X-ten.