Isolation of a Ripening and Wound-Induced cDNA from Cucumis Melo L.With Homology to the Ethylene Forming Enzyme

Abstract

Ethylene is an important plant growth regulator which is synthesized naturally during climacteric fruit ripening [Yang and Hoffmann, 1984]. The ability to extend the storage life and prevent spoilage of climacteric fruit by inhibiting ethylene biosynthesis has already been demonstrated in transgenic tomato plants expressing antisense EFE [Hamilton et al., 1990] and ACC synthase [Oehler et al., 1991] genes. In order to try and extend the storage life of melon fruit by inhibiting ethylene synthesis our initial aim was to isolate an EFE clone from a climacteric melon fruit cDNA library, using the heterologous pTOM13 (EFE) probe from tomato.KeywordsRipe FruitStorage LifeTransgenic Tomato PlantClimacteric FruitRipe TomatoThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.