ARS | Publication request: A young bud's fruitful journey: The spatial and temporal expression of transcription factors controlling early fruit determination and differentiation in stone fruit

Submitted to: Plant Biology Annual Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: June 7, 2010
Publication Date: June 30, 2010
Citation: Lalli, D., Dardick, C.D., Scorza, R., Callahan, A.M. 2010. A young bud's fruitful journey: The spatial and temporal expression of transcription factors controlling early fruit determination and differentiation in stone fruit. Plant Biology Annual Meeting. p. 4017.

Technical Abstract: Studies in Arabidopsis and tomato have provided insights into the transcriptional regulation of floral organogenesis and fruit development in both a dry dehiscent and a fleshy fruit, respectively. Stone fruits including peaches, plums, cherries, and apricots form a fleshy fruit that contains a hard stone produced through the lignification of the endocarp, a process that also occurs in dehiscent fruits. Recent evidence suggests that the pathways controlling stone development in peach and plum may be more similar to those in Arabidopsis than tomato. In order to gain a more complete picture of this process, a plum (Prunus domestica) collection was established to sample developmental stages from newly emerging buds through mature fruit. The plant material was collected from wild-type plum and a naturally occurring ‘stoneless’ mutant that mostly lacks the endocarp layer. These tissue samples were used to follow the transcriptional regulation of fruit and stone development through real-time quantitative PCR and in situ hybridization with 10 transcription factors known to regulate the enb layer (endocarp) development in Arabidopsis. The present study tracks the timing and expression levels of these transcription factors in both developing vegetative buds and floral buds collected just after bud set in mid-summer through stone hardening, 11 months later in early summer of the following year. These studies confirm that regulation of stone development in stone fruits is similar to the process of enb formation in Arabidopsis.