BACKGROUND Carbon assimilation and leaf-to-fruit sugar transport are, along with plant water status, the driving mechanisms for fruit growth. An integrated comprehension of the plant water and carbon relationships is therefore essential to better understand water and dry matter accumulation. Variations in stem diameter result from an integrated response to plant water and carbon status and are ...

The tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum cv Ailsa Craig) polygalacturonase genes TAPG1 (LYCes;Pga1;2) and TAPG4 (LYCes;Pga1;5) are abundantly expressed in both abscission zones and the pistils of mature flowers. To further investigate the spatial and temporal expression patterns for these genes, the TAPG gene promoters were ligated to beta-glucuronidase (GUS) reporter genes and transformed into toma...

The PIN-FORMED (PIN) auxin efflux transport protein family has been well characterized in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, where these proteins are crucial for auxin regulation of various aspects of plant development. Recent evidence indicates that PIN proteins may play a role in fruit set and early fruit development in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), but functional analyses of PIN-silenced...

Fruit initiation in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) is generally repressed until fertilization occurs. However, mutations in AUXIN RESPONSE FACTOR8 (ARF8) uncouple fruit initiation from fertilization, resulting in the formation of seedless, parthenocarpic fruit. Here we induced parthenocarpy in wild-type Arabidopsis by introducing either the mutant genomic (g) Atarf8-4 sequence or gAtARF8:be...

Phenotypic diversity within cultivated tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is particularly evident for fruit shape and size. Four genes that control tomato fruit shape have been cloned. SUN and OVATE control elongated shape whereas FASCIATED (FAS) and LOCULE NUMBER (LC) control fruit locule number and flat shape. We investigated the distribution of the fruit shape alleles in the tomato germplasm and ...

Fruit softening is mainly associated with cell wall structural modifications, and members of the xyloglucan endotransglucosylase/hydrolase (XTH) family are key enzymes involved in cleaving and re-joining xyloglucan in the cell wall. In this work, we isolated a new XTH gene, DkXTH8, from persimmon fruit. Transcriptional profiling revealed that DkXTH8 peaked during dramatic fruit softening, and e...

sensitivity of tomato fruit to low temperature and chilling injury limits the storage, handling and marketability of the fruit. as a recommended postharvest treatment, effects of hot water treatment (hwt) on reducing chilling injury and quality traits, variation of tomato fruits during storage life were investigated. tomato fruits were harvested at mature green stage. they were treated by hot w...

Gene expression analysis in tomato fruit has drawn increasing attention nowadays. Quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) is a routine technique for gene expression analysis. In qPCR operation, reliability of results largely depends on the choice of appropriate reference genes (RGs). Although tomato is a model for fruit biology study, few RGs for qPCR analysis in tomato fruit had yet been developed. ...

Yield is the most important breeding trait of crops. For fruit-bearing plants such as Solanum lycopersicum (tomato), fruit formation directly affects yield. The final fruit size depends on the number and volume of cell layers in the pericarp of the fruit, which is determined by the degree of cell division and expansion in the fertilized ovaries. Thus, fruit yield in tomato is predominantly dete...