Abstract
Efforts in numerous laboratories including our own have focused upon the isolation of specific genes which regulate the ripening process and related fruit quality characters. Together these efforts have resulted in the isolation of genes involved in numerous aspects of the ripening phenotype including cell wall metabolism, ethylene biosynthesis and perception, pigment biosynthesis, and susceptibility to post-harvest pathogens. Specific efforts in our laboratory are focused in two general areas. The first is toward isolation and characterization of genes which represent upstream global developmental regulators of ripening such as the ripening-inhibitor (rin) and non-ripening (nor) genes. We are currently characterizing genes which we believe represent both target loci. Our second focus is on analysis of ethylene signal transduction components and analysis of corresponding gene expression and function during the ripening process. We have isolated a putative tomato homologue of the Arabidopsis CTR1 gene and have shown that it is ethylene regulated during tomato fruit development. This represents a second component of ripening-related ethylene signal transduction, in addition to the Never-ripe ethylene receptor, whose mRNA accumulation is itself under ethylene control. In addition, we have shown through genetic mapping that a putative tomato constitutive ethylene response mutant (Epi; Epinastic) does not represent a mutation in the tomato CTR1 gene TCTR1. Epi/Epi; Nr/Nr double-mutant analysis suggests that the Epi mutation represents a step in ethylene responses limited to ethylene-mediated cell size effects.
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Giovannoni, J., Fox, E., Kannan, P., Lee, S., Padmanabhan, V., Vrebalov, J. (1999). Analysis of Gene Expression and Mutants Influencing Ethylene Responses and Fruit Development in Tomato. In: Kanellis, A.K., Chang, C., Klee, H., Bleecker, A.B., Pech, J.C., Grierson, D. (eds) Biology and Biotechnology of the Plant Hormone Ethylene II. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4453-7_21
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4453-7_21
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