A new class of regulatory genes underlying the cause of pear-shaped tomato fruit.
A common, recurring theme in domesticated plants is the occurrence of pear-shaped fruit. A major quantitative trait locus (termed ovate) controlling the transition from round to pear-shaped fruit has been cloned from tomato. OVATE is expressed early in flower and fruit development and encodes a previously uncharacterized, hydrophilic protein with a putative bipartite nuclear localization signal, Von Willebrand factor type C domains, and an approximately equal 70-aa C-terminal domain conserved in tomato, Arabidopsis, and rice. A single mutation, leading to a premature stop codon, causes the transition of tomato fruit from round- to pear-shaped. Moreover, ectopic, transgenic expression of OVATE unevenly reduces the size of floral organs and leaflets, suggesting that OVATE represents a previously uncharacterized class of negative regulatory proteins important in plant development.
Liu
Jiping
J
Departments of Plant Breeding and Plant Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
Van Eck
Joyce
J
Cong
Bin
B
Tanksley
Steven D
SD
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D018389:Codon, Nonsense; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000378:metabolism; D005638:Fruit / Q000502:physiology*; D005816:Genetic Complementation Test; D018551:Solanum lycopersicum / Q000502:physiology*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010641:Phenotype; D020161:Physical Chromosome Mapping; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology*; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
D018389:Codon, Nonsense; D018076:DNA, Complementary; D010940:Plant Proteins