Abstract:Chalcone synthase (CHS) provides the first committed step of flavonoid biosynthesis by condensing one molecule of p-coumaroyl-CoA with three molecules of malonyl-CoA to produce tetrahydroxychalcone. Chalcone synthases are closely related to stilbene synthases (STS), the key enzymes of the stilbenes pathway, as illustrated by the fact that both enzymes share the same substrates. To better understand the variety and quantity of CHS and STS genes in grape, we used bioinformatics methods to screen the auxin-response genes from the grape genome database, and analyzed their chromosomal location, phylogenetic analysis and conserved motif. Our results showed that 33 STS and 9 CHS genes were identified, and there genes were concentrated on 6 chromosomes, and some of them formed distinct tandem duplicate gene clusters. Grape CHS and STS genes had conserved sequence length, gene structure, protein motif, and closely evolutionary relationships. The available grape microarray databases showed that all of CHS and STS genes were expressed in grape pulp and skin, especially CHS Groups Ⅲ genes were highly expressed in grape skin. STS genes were poorly expressed in grape fruit, but some of them were highly expressed in the skin of mature fruits. This paper provides a resource for functional studies of CHS and STS genes in grape fruit development.