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JXB Advance Access originally published online on August 21, 2009
Journal of Experimental Botany 2009 60(13):3873-3890; doi:10.1093/jxb/erp227
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© 2009 The Author(s).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This paper is available online free of all access charges (see http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/open_access.html for further details)

RESEARCH PAPER

Gene regulation in parthenocarpic tomato fruit

Federico Martinelli1, Sandra L. Uratsu1, Russell L. Reagan1, Ying Chen2, David Tricoli3, Oliver Fiehn4, David M. Rocke2, Charles S. Gasser5 and Abhaya M. Dandekar1,*

1Department of Plant Sciences, Mail Stop 2, University of California, Davis, 1 Shields Ave, Davis, CA 95616, USA
2Division of Biostatistics, Med Sci 1C, Room 146, University of California, Davis, 1 Shields Ave, Davis, CA 95616, USA
3Plant Transformation Facility, 190 Robbins Hall, University of California, Davis, 1 Shields Ave, Davis, CA 95616, USA
4UC Davis Genome Center and Bioinformatics Program, 1315 GBSF, University of California, Davis, 1 Shields Ave, Davis, CA 95616, USA
5Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of California, Davis, 1 Shields Ave, Davis, CA 95616, USA

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: amdandekar{at}ucdavis.edu

Parthenocarpy is potentially a desirable trait for many commercially grown fruits if undesirable changes to structure, flavour, or nutrition can be avoided. Parthenocarpic transgenic tomato plants (cv MicroTom) were obtained by the regulation of genes for auxin synthesis (iaaM) or responsiveness (rolB) driven by DefH9 or the INNER NO OUTER (INO) promoter from Arabidopsis thaliana. Fruits at a breaker stage were analysed at a transcriptomic and metabolomic level using microarrays, real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and a Pegasus III TOF (time of flight) mass spectrometer. Although differences were observed in the shape of fully ripe fruits, no clear correlation could be made between the number of seeds, transgene, and fruit size. Expression of auxin synthesis or responsiveness genes by both of these promoters produced seedless parthenocarpic fruits. Eighty-three percent of the genes measured showed no significant differences in expression due to parthenocarpy. The remaining 17% with significant variation (P <0.05) (1748 genes) were studied by assigning a predicted function (when known) based on BLAST to the TAIR database. Among them several genes belong to cell wall, hormone metabolism and response (auxin in particular), and metabolism of sugars and lipids. Up-regulation of lipid transfer proteins and differential expression of several indole-3-acetic acid (IAA)- and ethylene-associated genes were observed in transgenic parthenocarpic fruits. Despite differences in several fatty acids, amino acids, and other metabolites, the fundamental metabolic profile remains unchanged. This work showed that parthenocarpy with ovule-specific alteration of auxin synthesis or response driven by the INO promoter could be effectively applied where such changes are commercially desirable.

Key words: fruit quality, fruit ripening, INO, parthenocarpic, seedless fruit, tomato

Received 23 March 2009; Revised 26 May 2009 Accepted 25 June 2009


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