Freezing effect on some quality parameters of transgenic parthenocarpic eggplants

Reguladores de crescimento na frutificação efetiva e qualidade de frutos partenocárpicos de atemoia 'Gefner'

“…De acordo com Maestrelli et al (2003), a ausência de sementes está associada ao aumento da qualidade dos frutos. Esses mesmos autores reportam que a presença de sementes muito duras, o seu gosto desagradável e a capacidade de produção de substâncias que aceleram o processo de deterioração dos frutos são fatores que afetam a qualidade dos frutos.…”

The defH9-iaaM auxin-synthesizing gene increases plant fecundity and fruit production in strawberry and raspberry

“…We have developed a biotechnological strategy based on the DefH9-iaaM gene construct, which is composed of the regulatory region of the DefH9 gene from snapdragon and the iaaM coding region from Pseudomonas syringae pv savastanoi . In horticultural plants grown for the value of their fruits, it has been already shown that: i) the placenta/ovule-specific expression of the DefH9-iaaM gene confers parthenocarpic fruit development to eggplant and tomato [1,2]; ii) under the cultivation conditions tested, either protected or open field cultivation, transgenic DefH9-iaaM eggplants show a significant increase in fruit production, averaging between 30–35% extra fruit, concomitant with improved fruit quality and a reduction in cultivation costs [3-5]; iii) DefH9-iaaM tomato plants, grown under protected cultivation during spring, show a significant increase in fruit productivity ranging between 60% and 250% in the four different lines tested [6]; iv) by using an optimized gene version, namely the DefH9-RI ( R educed by I ntron) -iaaM gene, high quality fruit development has been achieved also in an industrial tomato cultivar that is hypersensitive to auxin [7] (for a review of patents and methods to induce parthenocarpy, see [6]); v) the increased productivity conferred on eggplant and tomato plants is mainly due to improved fruit set, although the weight of the fruit is also often increased [4,6,7]; vi) consistent with the known function of the iaaM gene product, which converts tryptophane to indole-3-acetamide which is then hydrolysed to the auxin indole acetic acid (IAA), DefH9-iaaM flower buds have an higher auxin (i.e. total IAA) content than controls [7].…”

Heterologous expression of Arabidopsis C-repeat binding factor 3 (AtCBF3) and cold-regulated 15A (AtCOR15A) enhanced chilling tolerance in transgenic eggplant (Solanum melongena L.)

“…1). It seems that the AtCBF3 and AtCOR15A under the control of the stress-inducible AtRD29A promoter could increase the cold tolerance in different plant species such as tobacco and rice (Kasuga et al 2004;Maestrelli et al 2003;Oh et al 2005).…”

“…Transgenesis has been successful in engineering useful agronomical traits in eggplant, such as resistances against insects (Groeneveld et al 2011), fungal wilt diseases (Prabhavathi and Rajam 2007), rootknot nematodes (Goggin et al 2006), abiotic stresses (Prabhavathi et al 2002;Prabhavathi and Rajam 2007), parthenocarpy (Acciarri et al 2002;Rotino et al 1997), and male sterility (Cao et al 2010) as well. The improvement in chilling tolerance of eggplant plants, however, has been achieved a little through the gene coding for mannitol phosphodehydrogenase (mtlD) from Escherichia coli (Prabhavathi et al 2002) and the one for arginine decarboxylase (adc) (Prabhavathi and Rajam 2007), respectively, although freezing effect was observed on the stored or processed eggplant fruits which were beared parthenocarpically using an iaaM gene and an ovule-specific promoter to increase the content and/or the activity of indole-3-acetic acid (Maestrelli et al 2003). Through the abovementioned CBF or COR genes to raise the cold tolerance of eggplant plants is deserved to explore.…”