Abstract
Seed shattering (or pod dehiscence, or fruit shedding) is essential for the propagation of their offspring in wild plants but is a major cause of yield loss in crops. In the dicot model species, Arabidopsis thaliana, pod dehiscence necessitates a development of the abscission zones along the pod valve margins. In monocots, such as cereals, an abscission layer in the pedicle is required for the seed shattering process. In the past decade, great advances have been made in characterizing the genetic contributors that are involved in the complex regulatory network in the establishment of abscission cell identity. We summarize the recent burgeoning progress in the field of genetic regulation of pod dehiscence and fruit shedding, focusing mainly on the model species A. thaliana with its close relatives and the fleshy fruit species tomato, as well as the genetic basis responsible for the parallel loss of seed shattering in domesticated crops. This review shows how these individual genes are co-opted in the developmental process of the tissues that guarantee seed shattering. Research into the genetic mechanism underlying seed shattering provides a premier prerequisite for the future breeding program for harvest in crops.
Highlights
The emergence of fruit represents a major evolutionary innovation in angiosperms, and the evolutionary success of wild plant species depends essentially on their capacity to scatter their offspring (Nathan and Muller-Landau, 2000)
Most of our knowledge on the genetic regulation of pod dehiscence has been obtained in the model organism Arabidopsis thaliana, a Brassicaceae species with a characteristic dry dehiscent fruit that shatters the seeds through the dehiscence zones (DZs) along the silique after maturity (Ferrándiz et al, 1999)
We review the recent findings in the genetic control of nonshattering fruit in crop species and highlight the prevalence of parallel molecular evolution in plant domestication
Summary
The emergence of fruit represents a major evolutionary innovation in angiosperms, and the evolutionary success of wild plant species depends essentially on their capacity to scatter their offspring (Nathan and Muller-Landau, 2000). Studies on the fruit shedding process in tomato, a model for fleshy fruits, have provided new insights into the regulatory networks responsible for the control of cell separation (Mao et al, 2000; Nakano et al, 2012; Liu et al, 2014) These findings reveal that there are strong similarities between dry and fleshy fruits in the molecular networks governing fruit dehiscence and maturation. We try to incorporate the recent insights into the molecular and hormonal regulation of tissues that are necessary for seed shattering and fruit shedding in model species and discuss how the genetic modification of the regulatory genes is co-opted in the evolutionary process to generate altered fruit morphologies with novel dispersal strategies. A comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing the seed shattering process is important, as it might have great potential in the facilitation of future crop domestication and breeding procedures to prevent unwanted seed loss
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