title: The high polyphenol content of grapevine cultivar tannat berries is conferred primarily by genes that are not shared with the reference genome.
abstract: The grapevine (Vitis vinifera) cultivar Tannat is cultivated mainly in Uruguay for the production of high-quality red wines. Tannat berries have unusually high levels of polyphenolic compounds, producing wines with an intense purple color and remarkable antioxidant properties. We investigated the genetic basis of these important characteristics by sequencing the genome of the Uruguayan Tannat clone UY11 using Illumina technology, followed by a mixture of de novo assembly and iterative mapping onto the PN40024 reference genome. RNA sequencing data for genome reannotation were processed using a combination of reference-guided annotation and de novo transcript assembly, allowing 5901 previously unannotated or unassembled genes to be defined and resulting in the discovery of 1873 genes that were not shared with PN40024. Expression analysis showed that these cultivar-specific genes contributed substantially (up to 81.24%) to the overall expression of enzymes involved in the synthesis of phenolic and polyphenolic compounds that contribute to the unique characteristics of the Tannat berries. The characterization of the Tannat genome therefore indicated that the grapevine reference genome lacks many genes that appear to be relevant for the varietal phenotype.
authors: Departamento de Biología Molecular, Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas Clemente Estable, 11600 Montevideo, Uruguay.
authors: Cecilia
authors: C
authors: Da Silva
authors: Gianpiero
authors: G
authors: Zamperin
authors: Alberto
authors: A
authors: Ferrarini
authors: Andrea
authors: A
authors: Minio
authors: Alessandra
authors: A
authors: Dal Molin
authors: Luca
authors: L
authors: Venturini
authors: Genny
authors: G
authors: Buson
authors: Paola
authors: P
authors: Tononi
authors: Carla
authors: C
authors: Avanzato
authors: Elisa
authors: E
authors: Zago
authors: Eduardo
authors: E
authors: Boido
authors: Eduardo
authors: E
authors: Dellacassa
authors: Carina
authors: C
authors: Gaggero
authors: Mario
authors: M
authors: Pezzotti
authors: Francisco
authors: F
authors: Carrau
authors: Massimo
authors: M
authors: Delledonne
mesh_terms: D000975:Antioxidants / Q000378:metabolism; D005638:Fruit / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D018745:Genome, Plant; D058977:Molecular Sequence Annotation; D010641:Phenotype; D059808:Polyphenols / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000235:genetics; D012016:Reference Values; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA; D059467:Transcriptome; D014583:Uruguay; D027843:Vitis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000975:Antioxidants; D059808:Polyphenols