Transcriptomics of differential ripening in Anjou pear (Pyrus communis L.)

This work aims to identify genes that are involved with the control of ripening in Anjou pear to provide insights into the molecular mechanisms that control ripening in pome fruits, and specifically to provide gene expression-based biomarkers that might be useful to producers. Indeed, producers currently lack the tools to reliably predict if fruit have the capacity to ripen. We applied a novel combination of bioinformatics analyses to discover genes with an expression profile that mirrored the phased, at-harvest maturity of the fruit samples. Our results are concordant with previous work, and offer new insights into the genetic control of ripening.