EXPRESSION OF GRAPEVINE AINTEGUMENTA-LIKE GENES IS ASSOCIATED WITH VARIATION IN OVARY AND BERRY SIZE

LIJAVETZKY, D; MUÑOZ, CJ; GRISSI, CC; EICHLER, E; CHIALVA, CS

Simposio; XXXI Reunión Argentina de Fisiología Vegetal; 2016

Fruit size is a highly important trait for most fruitand vegetable crops. This trait has been a mainselection target and could be involved indivergent selection processes leading to thedifferentiation between modern table and winecultivars. Even though its determination ishighly influenced by cultural practices, severalregions within the grapevine genome havebeen identified affecting berry size, eitherdirectly or indirectly through their effect on seedcontent. Using grapevine seeded cultivars, wehave analyzed the relationship between ovarycell number and the final size of ovaries andberry fruits. We also performed thecharacterization of the grapevineAINTEGUMENTA-LIKE family, since it is wellreported in Arabidopsis that AINTEGUMENTA(ANT) regulates cell proliferation and organgrowth in flower organ primordia by maintainingthe meristematic competence of cells duringorganogenesis. We show that orthologousgrapevine gene expression associate withflower developmental stages suggesting asimilar biological role for this gene family in thisspecies. Moreover, we detected a correlationbetween those organs size and the level ofexpression of VviANT1 the grapevine homologof AtANT. This grapevine gene also colocalizesin linkage group 18 with theconfidence interval of a previously detectedQTL for berry size. Thus our results suggest theinvolvement of ANT in the regulation of berrysize in grapevine. Additionally, the ectopicexpression of VviANT1 is providing newinformation regarding the involvement of thisgene in cell multiplication.