FaPAL EXPRESSION IN FRUIT TISSUE OF STRAWBERRY CULTIVARS WITH CONTRASTING ANTHOCYANIN ACCUMULATION

POMBO MA; MARTÍNEZ GA; CIVELLO PM

Tucumán

Congreso; XLV Reunión Anual SAIB; 2009

SAIB

One of the most important traits that make strawberry fruitattractive to the consumers is the accumulation of anthocyaninpigments. Fruit color development during ripening is associated tothe phenylpropanoid pathway. PAL is a key enzyme in thispathway, and then it has a determining role in strawberry fruitquality. In this work, we studied the level of anthocyanins duringfruit ripening in external and internal tissues of cultivars that differin color development (Camarosa, intense red colour in all fruittissue, and Toyonoka, light red colour only in external fruit tissue).Toyonoka showed a lower accumulation of anthocyanins that waslimited to external fruit tissue compared with Camarosa (highestpigment accumulation in both fruit sections). In addition, wecloned a FaPAL full-length gene and analyzed its expression indifferent strawberry plant organs. We observed FaPAL expressiononly in fruit tissues. During fruit ripening, FaPAL expression wasonly detected in the stages that showed some pigmentaccumulation in external and internal tissue of both cultivars, beingthe mRNA levels higher in Camarosa. PAL activity was higher ininternal fruit tissue, showing no correlation with FaPAL expressionin both cultivars. Finally, the higher FaPAL expression and PALactivity detected in Camarosa could be associated to the enhancedanthocyanin accumulation found in this cultivar.