Cloning of two putative polygalacturonase genes and analysis of their expression during ripening of strawberry cultivars with contrasting fruit firmness.

VILLARREAL NM; MARTÍNEZ GA; CIVELLO PM

Pinamar, Pcia. Buenos Aires, República Argentina.

Congreso; 10th Congress of PABMB (Panamerican Association for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology); 2005

PABMB y SAIB

During fruit ripening, cell wal] polymers sufíer modifícations as a consequence of the coordinated action of a range of enzymes. Polygalacturonases (PGs) are hydrolases involved in pectin degradation during ripening offieshy fruits, as strawberry.In order to obtain the full length sequence corresponding to partial PG clones previously isolated from strawberry fruits, a RACE reaction was performed with the BD Smart™ RACE cDNA Amplification Kit (Clontech). In the present work, we report the cloning of two putative polygalacturonase full length genes: FaPG and PGX8, from strawberry fruits of Camarosa cultivar. PgX8 has a deletion of 85 bp and a possible trame shift that wouid produce an inactive protein. By semiquántitative RT-PCR we have analyzed the expression pattern ofbottí genes on three strawberry cultivars with contrasting fruit firmness. Our results show that PGs expression is different in each cultivar. The expression oí PGX8 is higher in the fírm than in the soft cultivars, while the opposite occurs in the case ofFaPG.