BACKGROUND Cancer chemoprevention is a new approach in cancer prevention, in which chemical agents are used to prevent cancer in normal and/or high-risk populations. Although chemoprevention has shown promise in some epithelial cancers, currently available preventive agents are limited and the agents are costly, generally with side effects. Natural products, such as grape seed, green tea, and c...

Plant viral vectors are superior tools for genetic manipulation, allowing rapid induction or suppression of expression of a target gene in plants. This is a particularly effective technology for use in breeding fruit trees, which are difficult to manipulate using recombinant DNA technologies. We reported previously that if apple seed embryos (cotyledons) are infected with an Apple latent spheri...

A method is described for the simultaneous determination of diclobutrazol, flusilazole, flutriafol, hexaconazole, paclobutrazol, and tetraconazole in apple and pear pulps used in baby food at a limit of 0.01 mg/kg. Apple and pear pulp samples are subjected to selective solid-phase microdispersion (SPMD) with SPE-ED Matrix-38 and acetone-cyclohexane, and the extracts are cleaned up on a Florisil...

Despite the critical role of melanin in the protection of skin against UV radiation, excess production of melanin can lead to hyperpigmentation and skin cancer. Pear fruits are often used in traditional medicine for the treatment of melasma; therefore, we investigated the effects of pear extract (PE) and its component, protocatechuic acid (PCA), on melanogenesis in mouse melanoma cells. We foun...

A common, recurring theme in domesticated plants is the occurrence of pear-shaped fruit. A major quantitative trait locus (termed ovate) controlling the transition from round to pear-shaped fruit has been cloned from tomato. OVATE is expressed early in flower and fruit development and encodes a previously uncharacterized, hydrophilic protein with a putative bipartite nuclear localization signal...

The retention of respiratory control ("survival") by mitochondria held at 25 C was studied in relation to the ripening of two varieties of avocado (Persea americana Mill. var. ;Fuerte' and ;Hass') and one variety of pear (Pyrus communis. L. var. ;Bartlett') fruit. The survival of avocado mitochondria increased from 8 to 10 hours when isolated from unripe, preclimacteric fruit, to 48 hours when ...

Citation: Tozzi F, van Hooijdonk BM, Tustin DS, Corelli Grappadelli L, Morandi B, Losciale P and Manfrini L (2018) Photosynthetic Performance and Vegetative Growth in a New Red Leaf Pear: Comparison of Scion Genotypes Using a Complex, Grafted-Plant System. Front. Plant Sci. 9:404. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2018.00404 Photosynthetic Performance and Vegetative Growth in a New Red Leaf Pear: Comparison of...

Kluyveromyces fragilis KCTC 7260 and Saccharomyces cerevisiae KCTC 7904, which both grew well in pear marc extract, were selected and their growth profiles and physiological functionalities were determined. Both of the selected yeasts established maximal growth by 20 hr of cultivation at 30℃ in pear marc extract. The cell-free extracts showed high antihypertensive angiotensin I-converting enzym...

Cell walls from flesh, parenchyma cells, stone cells and skin were isolated from ripe and overripe Pyrus communis L. cv "De Cloche" using the phenol-buffer method. Pear polysaccharides were solubilized from cell walls by sequential extractions with aqueous solutions of ammonium oxalate, Na2CO3, and increasing concentration of NaOH, to explore overripening impact. Cell walls were also differenti...