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Auxin signalling regulation during induced and parthenocarpic fruit set in zucchini

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Abstract

Fruit set and fruit development can be limited due to ineffective pollination in off-season crops of Cucurbita pepo. To avoid this problem, parthenocarpy, the natural or artificial fruit development without fertilization, is required. The application of synthetic growth regulators is a common practice for inducing stimulative parthenocarpy in zucchini cultivars, but this method increases production costs and may cause other fruit defects. The disadvantages associated with this can be overcome through the use of vegetative parthenocarpic cultivars, which allow fruit set without any external stimuli. Three zucchini cultivars have been studied and differences have been found in parthenocarpic fruit development. Ethylene release of unpollinated fruit has corroborated the parthenocarpic fruit development. Vegetative parthenocarpy was observed in the Whitaker cultivar. Furthermore, the involvement of the auxin signalling pathway in controlling fruit set and parthenocarpy have been studied. Transcriptome analysis of auxin signalling genes, CpARF8, CpIAA9 and CpTIR1, have shown tissue-specific expression and have revealed a decrease in the expression levels of these genes in pollinated fruits after the fertilization signal, indicating their role in the transition from ovary to fruit. Nevertheless, it has also been shown that expression of these genes can be different between parthenocarpic cultivars.

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Abbreviations

Aux/IAA:

Auxin/indole-3-acetic acid

ARF:

Auxin Response Factor

AuxRE:

Auxin Response Element

BLAST:

Basic Local Alignment Search Tool

CDD:

Conserved Domain Database

CDS:

Coding Sequence

DPA:

Day Post Anthesis

N-J:

Neighbour Joining

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the project RTA2014-00078 from the Spanish Institute of Agronomy Research INIA (Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraría y Alimentaria). TPV is supported by a FPI scholarship from RTA2011-00044-C02-01/02 project of INIA (Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología). The authors thank Dr. Robinson for a supply of seeds of Whitaker cultivar, Dr. Maria Leticia Ruiz for her help in pairwise comparison and phylogenetic analysis of the sequences and Nicholas Davies for his help in grammatical revision of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Crop Breeding and Biotechnology Department, IFAPA Research Centre La Mojonera, Camino de San Nicolás, 1, 04745 La Mojonera, Almería, Spain

    Teresa Pomares-Viciana, Mercedes Del Río-Celestino & Pedro Gómez

  2. Genetic Improvement Fruits and Vegetables Lab. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, 10300 Baltimore Ave. Bldg. 010A Rm. 247 BARC-West, Beltsville, MD, 20705, USA

    Jose Die

  3. Crop Breeding and Biotechnology Department, IFAPA Research Centre Alameda del Obispo, Avd. Menéndez Pidal s/n, 14004, Córdoba, Spain

    Belén Román

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  1. Teresa Pomares-Viciana
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  2. Jose Die
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  3. Mercedes Del Río-Celestino
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  4. Belén Román
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  5. Pedro Gómez
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Correspondence to Pedro Gómez.

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Pomares-Viciana, T., Die, J., Del Río-Celestino, M. et al. Auxin signalling regulation during induced and parthenocarpic fruit set in zucchini. Mol Breeding 37, 56 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11032-017-0661-5

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