Abstract
Abstract Background and Aims The pacaya palm is a dioecious neotropical palm species that is exploited in Latin America for its male inflorescence, which is edible when immature. It is cultivated, in a non-intensive manner, in Guatemala, where a morphotype occurs that produces much larger, more highly branched inflorescences compared with wild palms. We sought to identify molecular factors underlying this phenotypic divergence, which is likely to be a product of domestication. Methods We performed RNA-seq-based studies on immature pacaya palm male inflorescences in order to identify genes that might be directly or indirectly affected in their expression in relation to domestication. We also measured the accumulation of a range of soluble sugar molecules to provide information on the biochemical status of the two different types of material. Key Results A total of 408 genes were found to display significantly different expression levels between the wild and cultivated morphotypes. Three different functional categories were found to be enriched in the gene set that was upregulated in the cultivated morphotype: redox balance; secondary metabolism; and transport. Several sugars were found to accumulate at higher levels in inflorescences of the cultivated morphotype, in particular myo-inositol, fructose and glucose. Conclusions The observed upregulation of redox-related genes in the cultivated morphotype is corroborated by the observation of higher myo-inositol accumulation, which has been shown to be associated with enhanced scavenging of reactive oxygen species in other plants and which may affect meristem activity.