α-Mannosidase (α-Man), a fruit ripening-specific N-glycan processing enzyme, is involved in ripening-associated fruit softening process. However, the regulation of fruit-ripening specific expression of α-Man is not well understood. We have identified and functionally characterized the promoter of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) α-Man to provide molecular insights into its transcriptional regulati...

Transcriptional studies in relation to fruit ripening generally aim to identify the transcriptional states associated with physiological ripening stages and the transcriptional changes between stages within the ripening programme. In non-climacteric fruits such as grape, all ripening-related genes involved in this programme have not been identified, mainly due to the lack of mutants for compara...

Carex divisa is a patrimonial rhizomatous species and acts as an important component of grazed wet permanent grassland on the French Atlantic coast. This study treated three storage regimes (wet-cold, dry-cold and dry-warm), burial in soil, fluctuating temperature and salinity on seed germination of C. divisa. The seeds were dormant at maturity. No seed germinated after 2 and 6 weeks of dry sto...

Previous work by the writers (6) has shown that the ripening rate of newly picked pears can be markedly stimulated by ethylene or gases of similar properties naturally evolved, but fruit treated after being held for prolonged periods of cold storage is not similarly affected. As a tentative explanation of these differences, it was suggested that the effects of ethylene are confined to a pre-rip...

White light strongly promotes dormancy in freshly harvested cereal grains, whereas dark and after-ripening have the opposite effect. We have analyzed the interaction of light and after-ripening on abscisic acid (ABA) and gibberellin (GA) metabolism genes and dormancy in barley (Hordeum vulgare 'Betzes'). Analysis of gene expression in imbibed barley grains shows that different ABA metabolism ge...

Background: An increasing success in induction of labor and subsequent termination of pregnancy in presence of unfavorable cervix requires cervical ripening in order to reduce complications and to diminish the rate of cesarean sections as well as the duration of labor.  However, there is no consensus on the efficiency of conventional methods for cervical ripening. Objective: To determine and co...

Few molecular studies have been devoted to the finger drop process that occurs during banana fruit ripening. Recent studies revealed the involvement of changes in the properties of cell wall polysaccharides in the pedicel rupture area. In this study, the expression of cell-wall modifying genes was monitored in peel tissue during post-harvest ripening of Cavendish banana fruit, at median area (c...

The cervix represents a formidable structural barrier for successful induction of labor. Approximately 10% of pregnancies undergo induction of cervical ripening and labor with prostaglandin (PG) E2 or PGE analogs, often requiring many hours of hospitalization and monitoring. On the other hand, preterm cervical ripening in the second trimester predicts preterm birth. The regulatory mechanisms of...

Plums are climacteric fruits: their ripening is associated with a burst of ethylene production and respiration rate. Stone fruits, including plum, have a distinct pattern of growth and development, described as a double sigmoid pattern. In order to understand the developmental control of ethylene perception in plum, four ethylene perception and signal transduction components (EPSTCs) were chara...