Profiling of soluble sugar compositions in mature fruits of a diverse pear (Pyrus spp.) germplasm by UPLC

Soluble sugars play a vital role as taste components in fruits, significantly contributing to fruit quality. Here, we employed ultraperformance liquid chromatography (UPLC) to determine the sugar composition of mature pear fruits from 142 cultivars. The results revealed that fructose, sorbitol, glucose, and sucrose were the primary soluble sugars present in pear fruit, and Pyrus pyrifolia (China) exhibited the highest total sugar content, followed by Pyrus ussuriensis, Pyrus bretschneideri, Pyrus communis, and Pyrus pyrifolia (Japanese and Korean (J&K)), Pyrus sinkiangensis, and the Hybrid Breeding (HB) cultivars. Furthermore, our study uncovered that the sampling time of these pear cultivars has a significant positive correlation with the content of sorbitol and glucose, respectively. Additionally, the soluble sugar content varied among pear fruits originating from different geographic positions, and the pear cultivars originating from the South China group presented the highest content of soluble sugar. In conclusion, these findings can provide valuable phenotypic data for studying sugar genetics and can also aid in selecting suitable parent cultivars in pear breeding programs.