Isolation and Characterization of Three in Pecan ().

Phenolics are a group of important plant secondary metabolites that have been proven to possess remarkable antioxidant activity and to be beneficial for human health. Pecan nuts are an excellent source of dietary phenolics. In recent years, many studies have focused on the separation and biochemical analysis of pecan phenolics, but the molecular mechanisms of phenolic metabolism in pecans have not been fully elucidated, which significantly hinders quality breeding research for this plant. Chalcone synthase (CHS) plays crucial roles in phenolic biosynthesis. In this study, three (, and ), were isolated and analyzed. and present high expression levels in different tissues, and they are also highly expressed at the initial developmental stages of kernels in three pecan genotypes. A correlation analysis was performed between the phenolic content and expression values during kernel development. The results indicated that the expression variations of and are significantly related to changes in total phenolic content. Therefore, play crucial roles in phenolic components synthesis in pecan. We believe that the isolation of is helpful for understanding phenolic metabolism in , which will improve quality breeding and resistance breeding studies in this plant.