Message

Let's share the joy of revealing the unknown part of fruit tree (apple).

Research Theme

・pomology

Studies on the genes of flower bud formation and parthenocarpy in apples.

1. Study of genes controlling floral organs on parthenocarpic consequences of apple

Apple parthenocarpic cultivars that develop fruits without forming seeds have floral organs mutation (petals are replaced by sepals, stamens are replaced by styles). Mutation of this flower organ is thought to be caused by the fact that the gene called MdPI involved in the formation of petals and stamens is not working in apples. The parthenocarpy of these cultivars are thought to be different mechanisms from other fruit trees such as persimmons, mandarin oranges, grapes, etc. I would like to clarify this cause.

２．Study on flower bud formation of apple

An apple is a woody plant and it is classified as a permanent fruit tree and the vegetative growth period (juvenile period) until floral bud differentiation is started is long, and it takes many years to harvest the fruit. Unlike herbaceous plants such as Arabidopsis thaliana and rice of the model plant, apple keeps the tree for several decades and must stably harvest fruits every year. The flower bud formation of the following year is greatly affected by flower thinning, fruit thinning and receiving light environment after flowering. When apple has many fruits, flower bud formation of the following year is suppressed. I would like to elucidate the balance between seed formation, fruit production and flower bud formation by investigating fruit production and flower bud differentiation.

Publications

The analysis of transgenic apples with down-regulated expression of MdPISTILLATA. Norimitsu Tanaka, Yuki Tanaka-Moriya, Naozumi Mimida, Chikako Honda, Hiroshi Iwanami, Sadao Komori, Masato Wada. Plant Biotechnology. 2016. 33：395-401.

Accumulation of anthocyanin in apples in response to blue light at 450 nm: recommendations for producing quality fruit color under global warming. Arakawa,O. S. Kikuya, P. Pungpomin, S. Zhang and N. Tanaka. European Journal of Horticultural Science. 2016. 81(6)：297-302.

Overexpression of Arabidopsis FT gene in apple leads to perpetual flowering. Norimitsu Tanaka, Ayano Ureshino, Narumi Shigeta, Naozumi Mimida, Sadao Komori, Sae Takahashi, Yuki Tanaka-Moriya, Masato Wada. Plant Biotechnology.  2014. 31(1): 11-20.