Background: Flower load in peach is an important determinant of final fruit quality and is subjected to cost-effective agronomical practices, such as the thinning, to finely balance the sink-source relationships within the tree and drive the optimal amount of assimilates to the fruits. Floral transition in peach buds occurs as a result of the integration of specific environmental signals, such as light and temperature, into the endogenous pathways that induce the meristem to pass from vegetative to reproductive growth. The cross talk and integration of the different players, such as the genes and the hormones, are still partially unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLowering the storage temperature is an effective method to extend the postharvest and shelf life of fruits. Nevertheless, this technique often leads to physiological disorders, commonly known as chilling injuries. Apples and pears are susceptible to chilling injuries, among which superficial scald is the most economically relevant.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDry yeast extracts (DYE) are applied to vineyards to improve aromatic and secondary metabolic compound content and wine quality; however, systematic information on the underpinning molecular mechanisms is lacking. This work aimed to unravel, through a systematic approach, the metabolic and molecular responses of Sauvignon Blanc berries to DYE treatments. To accomplish this, DYE spraying was performed in a commercial vineyard for two consecutive years.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGrapevine cultivation, such as the whole horticulture, is currently challenged by several factors, among which the extreme weather events occurring under the climate change scenario are the most relevant. Within this context, the present study aims at characterizing at the berry level the physiological response of cv. Sauvignon Blanc to sequential stresses simulated under a semi-controlled environment: flooding at bud-break followed by multiple summer stress (drought plus heatwave) occurring at pre-vèraison.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSuperficial scald is a post-harvest chilling storage injury leading to browning of the surface of the susceptible cv Granny Smith apples. Wounding of skins has been reported to play a preventive role on scald development however its underlying molecular factors are unknown. We have artificially wounded the epidermal and sub-epidermal layers of apple skins consistently obtaining the prevention of superficial scald in the surroundings of the wounds during two independent vintages.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRosaceae is a family with an extraordinary spectrum of fruit types, including fleshy peach, apple, and strawberry that provide unique contributions to a healthy diet for consumers, and represent an excellent model for studying fruit patterning and development. In recent years, many efforts have been made to unravel regulatory mechanism underlying the hormonal, transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic changes occurring during Rosaceae fruit development. More recently, several studies on fleshy (tomato) and dry (Arabidopsis) fruit model have contributed to a better understanding of epigenetic mechanisms underlying important heritable crop traits, such as ripening and stress response.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTight control of cell/tissue identity is essential for a correct and functional organ patterning, an important component of overall fruit development and eventual maturation and ripening. Despite many investigations regarding the molecular determinants of cell identity in fruits of different species, a useful model able to depict the regulatory networks governing this relevant part of fruit development is still missing. Here we described the peach fruit as a system to link the phenotype of a slow ripening (SR) selection to an altered transcriptional regulation of genes involved in determination of mesocarp cell identity providing insight toward molecular regulation of fruit tissue formation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Knotted-like transcription factors (KNOX) contribute to plant organ development. The expression patterns of peach KNOX genes showed that the class 1 members act precociously (S1-S2 stages) and differentially during drupe growth. Specifically, the transcription of KNOPE1 and 6 decreased from early (cell division) to late (cell expansion) S1 sub-stages, whilst that of STMlike1, 2, KNOPE2, 2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Auxins act as repressors of ripening inception in grape (véraison), while ethylene and abscisic acid (ABA) play a positive role as inducers of the syndrome. Despite the increasing amount of information made available on this topic, the complex network of interactions among these hormones remains elusive. In order to shed light on these aspects, a holistic approach was adopted to evaluate, at the transcriptomic level, the crosstalk between hormones in grape berries, whose ripening progression was delayed by applying naphtalenacetic acid (NAA) one week before véraison.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Field observations and a few physiological studies have demonstrated that peach embryogenesis and fruit development are tightly coupled. In fact, attempts to stimulate parthenocarpic fruit development by means of external tools have failed. Moreover, physiological disturbances during early embryo development lead to seed abortion and fruitlet abscission.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA large-scale transcriptome analysis has been conducted using microPEACH1.0 microarray on nectarine (Prunus persica L. Batsch) fruit treated with 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTwo peach genes homologous to the Arabidopsis ethylene receptor genes ETR1 and ERS1, named Pp-ETR1 and Pp-ERS1 respectively, have been isolated and characterized. Pp-ETR1 and Pp-ERS1 are conserved in terms of exon numbers and intron positions, although the first and fifth introns of Pp-ETR1 have an unusual length. In addition, two putative polyadenylation sites, that may cause an incomplete splicing at the 3' terminus, are present in the fifth intron.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe characterization and expression of PP-ACO1 and PP-ACO2, two members of the peach 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC) oxidase (ACO) gene family, are reported. PP-ACO1 is organized in 4 exons interrupted by 3 introns, whereas PP-ACO2 has only 2 of the 3 introns present in PP-ACO1. Comparison of the deduced amino acid sequences of PP-ACO1 and PP-ACO2 reveals a 77.
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