Inheritance of purple colour and its different flavonoids profiling in F2 populations of tropical carrot (Daucus carota L.)

The results of the inheritance study revealed that the purple root epiderm ( Pe ) and cortex ( Pcx ) colour were dominant over the yellow colour of epiderm ( ye ) and cortex ( ycx ), respectively and were governed by a single dominant gene, whereas yellow core ( Yc ) colour was dominant over the purple core ( pc ) of carrot root regulated by a single dominant gene, thus dominant genes could be used for exploitation of root colour heterosis. Flavonoids profiling of carrots population revealed the presence of three acylated compounds and two nonacylated compounds of five cyanidin derivatives of anthocyanin compounds in Black-Purple, Rose-Purple, Red-Purple and Grey-Purple colour roots. The Grey-Purple colour roots had solid purple on the epidermal layer and solid yellow colour on outer core revealed the highest β-carotene and lutein. The eighteen polymorphic molecular markers in F 2 mapping population identified out of 420 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers used in this study were used for the genotyping of F 2 mapping population developed from hybridization between two diverse inbreds possessing purple and yellow colour root. Therefore, genomic simple sequence repeats (GSSRs) and BAC end sequence based SSR (BSSR markers) will play an important role in the selection of anthocyanin-rich lines due to precise phenotype selection, cost-effectiveness and time- saving in the nutritional improvement of carrot through marker-assisted breeding.