Chanderbali André S, Albert Victor A, Ashworth Vanessa E T M, Clegg Michael T, Litz Richard E, Soltis Douglas E, Soltis Pamela S
Department of Botany, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
Bioessays. 2008 Apr;30(4):386-96. doi: 10.1002/bies.20721.
The avocado (Persea americana) is a major crop commodity worldwide. Moreover, avocado, a paleopolyploid, is an evolutionary "outpost" among flowering plants, representing a basal lineage (the magnoliid clade) near the origin of the flowering plants themselves. Following centuries of selective breeding, avocado germplasm has been characterized at the level of microsatellite and RFLP markers. Nonetheless, little is known beyond these general diversity estimates, and much work remains to be done to develop avocado as a major subtropical-zone crop. Among the goals of avocado improvement are to develop varieties with fruit that will "store" better on the tree, show uniform ripening and have better post-harvest storage. Avocado transcriptome sequencing, genome mapping and partial genomic sequencing will represent a major step toward the goal of sequencing the entire avocado genome, which is expected to aid in improving avocado varieties and production, as well as understanding the evolution of flowers from non-flowering seed plants (gymnosperms). Additionally, continued evolutionary and other comparative studies of flower and fruit development in different avocado strains can be accomplished at the gene expression level, including in comparison with avocado relatives, and these should provide important insights into the genetic regulation of fruit development in basal angiosperms.
鳄梨（Persea americana）是全球一种主要的农作物。此外，鳄梨作为古多倍体，是开花植物中的一个进化“前哨”，代表着开花植物起源附近的一个基部谱系（木兰类分支）。经过几个世纪的选择性育种，鳄梨种质已在微卫星和RFLP标记水平上得到了表征。尽管如此，除了这些大致的多样性估计外，人们所知甚少，要将鳄梨发展成为主要的亚热带作物，仍有许多工作要做。鳄梨改良的目标之一是培育出果实能在树上“储存”得更好、成熟均匀且采后储存性更佳的品种。鳄梨转录组测序、基因组图谱绘制和部分基因组测序将朝着对整个鳄梨基因组进行测序的目标迈出重要一步，这有望有助于改良鳄梨品种和提高产量，以及了解从非开花种子植物（裸子植物）到花的进化过程。此外，通过基因表达水平，包括与鳄梨近缘种进行比较，对不同鳄梨品系的花和果实发育进行持续的进化及其他比较研究，这应该能为基部被子植物果实发育的遗传调控提供重要见解。
