Molecular characterisation of apple accessions with respect to aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid synthase gene (ACS1) polymorphism

The ARC apple gene bank collection was genotyped for the fruit expressed gene ACS1, in which a short-interspersed element (SINE) in the promoter is known, when homozygous, to correlate with the delayed ethylene production. Primers were designed amplifying products less than 500 bp and 224 cultivars of domestic apple were analysed, 169 not previously genotyped. Of these, 82 were aa (homozygous for the high ethylene allele at 202 bp), 73 were ab and 14 bb (homozygous for the low ethylene allele, with the SINE, at 339 bp). The difference between the allele sizes, 137 bp, observed in the current study is consistent with the indel of 138 bp originally described, but differs considerably from the indel of 166 bp reported in literature. In addition, 21 accessions of other Malus species were analysed. Only one, M. 'Golden Hornet', had the b allele, which suggests it may have been introgressed from M. pumila.