Bilberry is a soft fruit, growing wild in the forests of Europe, and especially Nordic and East European countries. Its demand is growing on the market, thanks to its heath beneficial components like anthocyanins, present in both skin and flesh of the berry. It however has a very short shelf-life. The goal of this study was to identify pectinase genes, with a focus on two subfamilies, polygalacturonase (PG) and pectate lyase (PL). The main interest was to study those that are expressed during bilberry’s ripening, to get a better understanding of this process. Bioinformatics were used to identify the annotated genes from the bilberry genome, and point out candidates, from which transcripts are found during ripening, with BLAST searches within a transcriptome of ripening bilberry fruit. The expression of the PL candidates was then studied with qPCR analysis. The study identified 70 PG-coding genes and 25 PL-coding genes, of which 35 and 12, respectively, were found in the ripening berry. The expression of five PL genes was increased during ripening, suggesting a role in the softening of the fruit. Two of those had a notably higher relative increase, making them prime candidates for further study.
