Transcriptomic and Metabolomic Analyses Provide Insights into the Formation of the Peach-like Aroma of Schlecht. Fruits.

Schlecht. is a wild diploid strawberry species. The intense peach-like aroma of its fruits makes an excellent resource for strawberry breeding programs aimed at enhancing flavors. However, the formation of the peach-like aroma of strawberry fruits has not been comprehensively characterized. In this study, fruit metabolome and transcriptome datasets for (HA; peach-like aroma) and its interspecific hybrids PA (peach-like aroma) and NA (no peach-like aroma; control) were compared. In total, 150 differentially accumulated metabolites were detected. The K-means analysis revealed that esters/lactones, including acetic acid, octyl ester, δ-octalactone, and δ-decalactone, were more abundant in HA and PA than in NA. These metabolites may be important for the formation of the peach-like aroma of fruits. The significantly enriched gene ontology terms assigned to the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were fatty acid metabolic process and fatty acid biosynthetic process. Twenty-seven DEGs were predicted to be associated with ester and lactone biosynthesis, including , , , , , , , , and cytochrome P450 subfamily genes. Thirty-five transcription factor genes were predicted to be associated with aroma formation, including , , , , , , and . Moreover, we identified differentially expressed , , and cytochrome P450 family genes and , , and transcription factor genes that were correlated with δ-octalactone and δ-decalactone. These findings provide key insights into the formation of the peach-like aroma of fruits, with implications for the increased use of wild strawberry resources.