Mining minor cold-resistant genes in V. vinifera based on transcriptomics

Background Cold resistance is an important characteristic of sustainable development in the grape industry. Analyzing cold resistance genes provides molecular theoretical support for high-quality cold resistance breeding through cross breeding between grape varieties. The intraspecific recurrent selection in Vitis vinifera ( V. vinifera ) method uses high-quality varieties as breeding materials, and utilizes the substitution and accumulation of minor resistance genes, which is an effective method for high-quality grape disease resistance breeding. Results This study aimed to identify and genetically analyze the cold resistance of the V. vinifera hybrid population ( Ecolly x Dunkelfelder ), screen for highly resistant and sensitive plant samples, and use high-throughput sequencing to perform transcriptome sequencing and related differential gene expression analysis on each sample. The results showed that the cold resistance of the hybrid offspring population was a continuous quantitative trait inheritance, with 38 differentially expressed genes (7 upregulated genes and 31 downregulated genes) between the high resistance and sensitive types. GO enrichment analysis showed that differential genes were mainly enriched in the biosynthesis process of aromatic compounds, organic cyclic compounds, transcription cis regulatory region binding, transcription regulatory region nucleic acid binding, sequence specific double stranded DNA binding, double stranded DNA binding, and sequence specific DNA binding. KEGG analysis revealed differentially expressed genes, with pathways mainly enriched in the biosynthesis pathways of hexene, diarylheptanoid and gingerol, flavonoid biosynthesis, glycerophospholipid metabolism, and phenylpropanoid biosynthesis. Conclusion Through the analysis of cold resistance related genes in various pathways, it was found that the cold resistance genes of V. vinifera were mainly related to secondary metabolites, lipid, carbohydrate, amino acid synthesis metabolism, and transcription factor regulation.