Jorge DEL CUETO Chocano

• PostDoc
• PostDoc Position at Université Libre de Bruxelles

Secondary metabolites, such as phenolics, are plant defence substances. In the present study, the impact of Monilinia laxa inoculation under controlled conditions on phenolic content of apricot branches was investigated. A bi-parental hybrid population issued from Bergeron and Bakour cultivars (BerBa) and consisting of 192 hybrids was studied. The...

Organic apricot production is currently not profitable. The main obstacle to sustainable profitability is the brown rot disease caused by the fungus Monilinia laxa. Differences exist in the apricot germplasm in the brown rot susceptibility. A good evaluation of Monilinia is essential for a precise diagnosis of the disease and for exhibiting differe...

Monilinia fructicola has been a quarantine pathogen in Europe until 2014; however, the disease risk remains large for Prunus species, because of the continuing spreading around Europe. In order to assess the impact of this fungus on apricot fruits, differences in cultivar susceptibility need to be evaluated. For this purpose, more than 50 different...

How to make almonds palatable The domesticated almond tree has been feeding humans for millennia. Derivation from the wild, bitter, and toxic almond required loss of the cyanogenic diglucoside amygdalin. Sánchez-Pérez et al. sequenced the almond genome and analyzed the genomic region responsible for this shift. The key change turned out to be a poi...

Almond (Prunus dulcis) is the principal Prunus species in which the consumed and thus commercially important part of the fruit is the kernel. As a result of continued selection, the vast majority of almonds have a non-bitter sweet kernel. However, in the field there are trees carrying bitter kernels, which are toxic to humans and, consequently, nee...

The bitterness and toxicity of wild-type seeds of Prunoideae is due to the cyanogenic glucoside amygdalin. In cultivated almond (Prunus dulcis (Mill.) D.A. Webb), a dominant mutation at the Sk locus prevents amygdalin accumulation and thus results in edible sweet kernels. Here, we exploited sequence similarity and synteny between the genomes of alm...

Almond bitterness is the most important trait for breeding programs since bitter-kernelled seedlings are usually discarded. Amygdalin and its precursor prunasin are degraded by specific enzymes called β-glucosidases. In order to better understand the genetic control of almond bitterness, some studies have shown differences in the location of prunas...

Almond and sweet cherry are two economically important species of the Prunus genus. They both produce the cyanogenic glucosides prunasin and amygdalin. As part of a two-component defense system, prunasin and amygdalin release toxic hydrogen cyanide upon cell disruption. In this study, we investigated the potential role within prunasin and amygdalin...

Flowering time is an important agronomic trait in almond since it is decisive to avoid the late frosts that affect production in early flowering cultivars. Evaluation of this complex trait is a long process because of the prolonged juvenile period of trees and the influence of environmental conditions affecting gene expression year by year. Consequ...

Almond bitterness, caused by high amygdalin content, is the most important trait since bitter kernelled seedlings are usually discarded from breeding programs. Amygdalin and its precursor prunasin, both cyanogenic glucosides, are degraded by specific enzymes called β-glucosidases. In order to deep in the genetic control of almond bitterness some wo...

weet kernelled almond cultivars basically to avoid the lost of crops by frosts, the necessity to use inter-compatibles cultivars and because industry is mainly developed on sweet almonds. Regarding flowering time, chilling and heat requirements for breaking dormancy and flowering were studied in an almond progeny from the cross between the late flo...