Cucumber is an important fruit vegetable crop and a favorite component of healthy diet for many people around the globe. Consumers appreciate fresh cucumbers for its unique flavor and texture. Flavor perception of cucumber involves a combination of smell (aroma), taste, and texture. Previous work has shown that the fresh, green, melon-like smell of cucumber fruit is due mainly to C9 and C6 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and their ratio. Major taste attributes for cucumbers are bitterness, sweetness, and astringency, which may be linked with accumulation of cucurbitacins, sugars (e.g., fructose, glucose, and sucrose), or phenolic compounds, respectively. Fruit firmness, crispness, and juiciness contribute to fruit texture. Most flavor attributes seem to be under the control of quantitative trait loci (QTL). In recent years, significant progress has been made in our understanding on the genetics and regulation of cucumber fruit bitterness, but studies on the genetics of other flavor quality attributes like fruit firmness and VOC contents in cucumber are sporadic. Overall, our understanding of cucumber flavor-related traits is still limited. Past breeding efforts to improve cucumber flavor is minimal. Consumer dissatisfaction on cucumber flavor is high necessitating improvement of cucumber flavor quality, which could be facilitated and accelerated with modern molecular breeding technologies. In this talk, we will review the literature summarizing our understanding on the genetic basis of traits related with the smell, texture and taste of cucumber fruits. We will also present results from our preliminary work on QTL mapping in segregating populations for fruit flavor quality related traits including aroma volatiles (C6 and C9 VOCs), fruit texture (fruit firmness), acid (pH, total acids) and sugar contents.

Flavor of cucumber fruit: a genetics perspective

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ACS Fall 2022

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