Molecular Genetic Analysis of Citric Acid Accumulation in Citrus Fruit
Authors: Sadka Avi , Roose Mikeal L. , Erner Yair 
Published: December 2021

The acid content of the juice sac cells is a major determinant of maturity and fruit quality in citrus. Many citrus varieties accumulate acid in concentrations that exceed market desires, reducing grower income and consumer satisfaction. Pulp acidity is thought to be dependent on two mechanisms: the accumulation of citric acid in the vacuoles of the juice sac cells, and acidification of the vacuole. The major aim of the project was to direct effort toward understanding the mechanism of citric acid accumulation in the fruit. The following objectives were suggested: Measure the activity of enzymes likely to be involved in acid accumulation and follow their pattern of expression in developing fruit (Sadka, Erner). Identify and clone genes which are associated with high and low acid phenotypes and with elevated acid level (Roose, Sadka, Erner). Convert RAPD markers that map near a gene that causes low acid phenotype to specific co dominant markers (Roose). Use genetic co segregation to test whether specific gene products are responsible for low acid phenotype (Roose and Sadka). Objective 1 was fully achieved. Most of the enzymes of organic acid metabolism were cloned from lemon pulp. Their expression was studied during fruit development in low and high acid varieties. The activity and expression of citrate synthase, aconitase and NADP-isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) were studied in detail. The role that each enzyme plays in acid accumulation and decline was evaluated. As a result, a better understanding of the metabolic changes that contribute to acid accumulation was achieved. It was found that the activity of the mitochondrial aconitase is greatly reduced early in high-acid fruits, but not in acidless ones, suggesting that this enzyme plays an important role in acid accumulation. In addition, it was demonstrated that increases in the cytosolic forms of aconitase and NADP-IDH towards fruit maturation play probably a major role in acid decline. Our studies also demonstrated that the two mechanisms that contribute to fruit acidity, vacuolar acidification and citric acid accumulation, are independent, although they are tightly co-regulated. Additional, we demonstrated that sodium arsenite, which reduce fruit acidity, causes a transient inhibition in the activity of citrate synthase, but an induction in the gene expression. This part of the work has resulted in 4 papers. Objective 3 was also fully achieved. Using bulked segregant analysis, three random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers were identified as linked to acitric, a gene controlling the acidless phenotype of pummelo 2240. One of them, which mapped 1.2 cM from acitric was converted into sequence characterized amplified region (SCAR marker, and into co dominant restriction length polymorphism (RFLP) marker. These markers were highly polymorphic among 59 citrus accessions, and therefore, they should be useful for selecting seedling progeny heterozygous for acitric in nearly all crosses between pummelo 2240 and other citrus genotypes. This part of the project resulted in one paper. Objective 4 was also fully achieved. Clones isolated by the Israeli group were sent to the American laboratory for co segregation analysis. However, none of them seemed to co segregate with the low acid phenotype. Both laboratories invested much effort in achieving the goals of Objective 2, namely the isolation of genes that are elevated in expression in low and high acid phenotypes, and in tissue cultures treated with arsenite (a treatment which reduces fruit acidity). However, conventional differential display and restriction fragment differential display analyses could not identify any differentially expressed genes. The isolation of such genes was the major aim of a continuation project, which was recently submitted.