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Fruit development in oilseed rape and Arabidopsis

Reference	BBS/E/J/00000613
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Lars Ostergaard
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	John Innes Centre
Department	John Innes Centre Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	2,408,277
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/04/2005
End date	31/03/2017
Duration	143 months

Abstract

Brassica and Arabidopsis are members of the diverse Brassicaceae family and are estimated to have diverged approximately 20 million years ago. This close relationship is also reflected in their similar overall fruit morphologies. The outside of both fruit consists of two seed-pod walls that are separated along their entire length by a thin structure called the replum. At maturity, the pod walls detach from the replum, allowing the seed to be released. The Ostergaard lab is researching the genetic and hormonal regulation of fruit development and has recently demonstrated the crucial importance of correct hormone distribution for fruit tissue specification. This knowledge provides a clear direction for future strategies to control seed dispersal that should be generally applicable to diverse Brassica crop species to reduce seed loss. Oilseed rape (Brassica napus) contributes 15-20% to the total UK crop output every year. However, the overall yield could be significantly improved by the inhibition of unsynchronised seed dispersal known as pod shatter, which leads to annual losses of 11-25%, and contamination of the following years’ crop, inhibiting crop rotation practices. Molecular and genetic comparisons of the mechanism of fruit development in Arabidopsis and Brassica suggest that using experience from Arabidopsis fruit development to modulate this trait in oilseed rape will be successful. Research is focussing on gaining additional knowledge of the pod shatter mechanism to enable the improvement of conventionally modified crops through marker-assisted breeding combined with a “candidate gene” approach.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Not funded via Committee
Research Topics	Crop Science, Plant Science
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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