Transcriptomic analysis of x hybrids during low temperature winemaking.

BACKGROUND

Although is the most frequently isolated species in wine fermentation, and the most studied species, other species and interspecific hybrids have greatly attracted the interest of researchers in this field in the last few years, given their potential to solve new winemaking industry challenges. x hybrids exhibit good fermentative capabilities at low temperatures, and produce wines with smaller alcohol quantities and larger glycerol quantities, which can be very useful to solve challenges in the winemaking industry such as the necessity to enhance the aroma profile.

METHODS

In this study, we performed a transcriptomic study of x hybrids in low temperature winemaking conditions.

RESULTS

The results revealed that the hybrids have acquired both fermentative abilities and cold adaptation abilities, attributed to and parental species, respectively, showcasing their industrially relevant characteristics. For several key genes, we also studied the contribution to gene expression of each of the alleles of and in the x hybrids. From the results, it is not clear how important the differential expression of the specific parental alleles is to the phenotype of the hybrids.

CONCLUSIONS

This study shows that the fermentative abilities of x hybrids at low temperatures do not seem to result from differential expression of specific parental alleles of the key genes involved in this phenotype.