Comparative genomics of muskmelon reveals a potential role for retrotransposons in the modification of gene expression

Melon exhibits substantial natural variation especially in fruit ripening physiology, including both climacteric (ethylene-producing) and non-climacteric types. However, genomic mechanisms underlying such variation are not yet fully understood. Here, we report an Oxford Nanopore-based high-grade genome reference in the semi-climacteric cultivar Harukei-3 (378 Mb + 33,829 protein-coding genes), with an update of tissue-wide RNA-seq atlas in the Melonet-DB database. Comparison between Harukei-3 and DHL92, the first published melon genome, enabled identification of 24,758 one-to-one orthologue gene pairs, whereas others were candidates of copy number variation or presence/absence polymorphisms (PAPs). Further comparison based on 10 melon genome assemblies identified genome-wide PAPs of 415 retrotransposon Gag-like sequences. Of these, 160 showed fruit ripening-inducible expression, with 59.4% of the neighboring genes showing similar expression patterns ( r > 0.8). Our results suggest that retrotransposons contributed to the modification of gene expression during diversification of melon genomes, and may affect fruit ripening-inducible gene expression. Ryoichi Yano et al. report a Nanopore-based reference genome assembly of muskmelon—a fruit known for its many cultivated varieties, including cantaloupe and honeydew—using the Japanese Harukei-3 cultivar. They identify structural genetic variation by comparing the reference to several melon genome assemblies and investigate tissue-wide gene expression patterns by RNA sequencing.