Life Science Seminar: To be or not to be orange: Discovering carotenoid genes in crops
Life Science Seminar
To be or not to be orange: Discovering carotenoid genes in crops
Emalee Wrightstone (Biotech ’21)
Ph.D. Candidate, Plant Breeding and Genetics
Cornell University
Abstract:
Cucurbita sp. squash fruits are highly rich sources of carotenoids which are essential to human nutrition and health. In Cucurbita maxima squash, the Bmax locus is a crucial Mendelian-inherited gene controlling fruit carotenoid accumulation and has high potential in commercial orange squash cultivation. To identify Bmax, QTL-seq analysis of bulked F2 C. moschata plants detected one QTL on chromosome 14 which was fine mapped to a 96 kb region containing 17 genes. Among them, one strong candidate stands out. My ongoing work seeks to confirm and uncover how it promotes carotenoid accumulation. Identification of Bmax provides breeders with a novel genetic tool for advancing carotenoid biofortification in crop plants.
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