Expression of Pch313 During Fruit Softening and Tissue Wounding

Abstract

<jats:p>We are interested in identifying and isolating genes which affect the rate of softening in peach fruit. It may be possible through the engineering of these genes to delay or extend the softening. This could ultimately allow for the harvest and transport of more mature, higher quality fruit. The clone, pch313, was isolated from a ripe peach fruit cDNA library. RNA homologous to this clone is detected at a low abundance in fruit until softening when a &gt;100 fold increase in abundance of the RNA occurs. Pch313 RNA is also detected 30 min after wounding leaf or fruit tissue and peaks in accumulation within 2-8 hours. Wound ethylene was measured from the same tissue and its rate of evolution paralleled the accumulation of the RNA. The cDNA was sequenced and found to have 78% sequence identity with pTom13, a tomato gene that is expressed during fruit ripening and wounding (Holdsworth et al., NAR 15:731-739, 1987). To determine the universality of pch313 related gene expression, RNA accumulation was measured in other fruits during softening, and in leaf tissue upon wounding.</jats:p>