Secondary compounds in fruit mediate interactions with natural enemies and seed dispersers, influencing plant survival and species distributions. The functions of secondary metabolites in plant defenses have been well-studied in green tissues, but not in reproductive structures of plants. In this study, the distribution of toxicity within plants was quantified and its influence on seed survival...

Transgenic Solanum lycopersicum plants expressing an additional copy of lycopene β– cyclase (LCYB) from Nicotiana tabacum, under the control of the Arabidopsis polyubiquitin promoter (UBQ3), have been generated. Expression of LCYB was increased some 10-fold in ripening fruit compared to vegetative tissues. The ripe fruit showed an orange pigmentation, due to increased levels (up to 5-fold) of β...

Watermelon [Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum. & Nakai] is an important vegetable crop world-wide. Watermelon fruit quality is a complex trait determined by various factors such as sugar content, flesh color and flesh texture. Fruit quality and developmental process of cultivated and wild watermelon are highly different. To systematically understand the molecular basis of these differences, we ...

Both sorbitol and sucrose are imported into apple fruit from leaves. The metabolism of sorbitol and sucrose fuels fruit growth and development, and accumulation of sugars in fruit is central to the edible quality of apple. However, our understanding of the mechanisms controlling sugar metabolism and accumulation in apple remains quite limited. We identified members of various gene families enco...

Although Lycium chinense (goji berry) is an important traditional Chinese medicinal plant, little genome information is available for this plant, particularly at the small-RNA level. Recent findings indicate that the evolutionary role of miRNAs is very important for a better understanding of gene regulation in different plant species. To elucidate small RNAs and their potential target genes in ...

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect preharvest application 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) on postharvest dissipation stress watercore incidence and severity rating over 30 d at 20 °C. ‘Jonagold’ trees were untreated or sprayed with 1-MCP one week before harvest. Harvest indices quality factors °C, assessed days 2, 5, 9,15, 20, 30. Fruit treated treatment had lower internal ethy...

Bronzing of strawberry (Fragaria ×ananassa Duchesne) fruit that is not the result of arthropod feeding or chemical spray application occurs frequently in California’s central coast strawberry production region from late spring through midsummer, a period characterized by relatively high temperature, low relative humidity, and high solar irradiance. The cause of this phenomenon is not known, but...

bacterial canker of stone fruit trees caused by pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae has become widespread throughout most fruit growing areas of iran (abbasi et al 2013). to evaluate the diversity of the strains and possible species inciting the disease in the central areas of the country, surveys were made in 2014 and 2015 in some central provinces including charmahal-and-bakhtiary, isfahan, qum...

In order to distinguish the interactions between low oxygen and fruit developmental stages, preclimacteric and ripening-initiated with propylene avocado fruit were exposed to different low oxygen levels and the steady-state levels of protein and mRNA accumulation of selected hypoxic and ripening genes were investigated. In addition, the patterns of translatable mRNA were studied by 2D IEF/SDSPA...

The SlPPC2 phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC; EC 4.1.1.31) gene from tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is differentially and specifically expressed in expanding tissues of developing tomato fruit. We recently showed that a 1966 bp DNA fragment located upstream of the ATG codon of the SlPPC2 gene (GenBank AJ313434) confers appropriate fruit-specificity in transgenic tomato. In this study, we fur...