Hormone influence on the expression of strawberry expansin genes

DOTTO MC; MARTÍNEZ GA; PEDRO MARCOS CIVELLO

Pinamar, Pcia. Buenos Aires

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

PABMB y SAIB

Since strawberry is a non climateric fruit, ethylene is not the major hormone in the control of the ripening process. It is thought that the decline in auxin production towards the end of the growing stages marks the onset of ripening in strawberry. Other hormones such as ABA and giberellins have been detected in strawberry fruits and they could have an influence in strawberry ripening. Expansins are cell wall proteins which are able to increase cell wall elongation rate and have been related to the process of fruit softening. Hormonal regulation of these proteins in strawberry had not been studied until now, except for FaEXP2 whose expression level in fruit was not influenced by ethylene or auxin treatment. In order to characterize the possible hormone influence in the expression of expansin genes, we analyzed the effect of ethylene, NAA, GAS, ABA and deachened fruits (achenes are the source of endogenous auxin) in the expression of a set of expansin genes in strawberry (FaEx, FaExp2, FaExp4, FaExp5 and FaExp6).