GEPR: Flower and Fruit Development in Diploid Strawberry

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Strawberry fruit production has significant economic value for US farmers. Knowledge that can lead to an increase in strawberry fruit size and number, improvement in fruit color, shape, and taste, and to added nutritional and pharmaceutical value will enhance our nation's economic competitiveness. Information gained from studying fruit development in existing reference plants, such as Arabidopsis, rice or maize, is difficult to apply to strawberry because strawberry flowers and fruits have unique structures and complex chemical communications between the seed-bearing ovary called the achene and the fleshy stem, the fruit. This project will describe molecular, hormonal, and morphological events, in specific cell types and individual tissue types, during floral organ and fruit development. The project will use the most modern technology and a diploid strawberry species, Fragaria vesca that is easily worked with in the laboratory. With the resources and information thus generated, genes with roles in achene ripening and genes that regulate signaling/communications between achene and fruits will be identified and characterized, taking advantage of the recently completed genome sequencing of F. vesca. The project will provide fundamental molecular and physiological insights into the signaling and communication events between achenes and the fruit. Such insights will enable future agricultural manipulation to control seed maturation, fruit growth, and fruit ripening, which underlie strawberry's reproductive success and adaptation to the changing environment.Broader impacts. The resources generated by the project include next generation sequencing data for 36 stage and tissue specific samples representing reproductive development, annotations of a large number of strawberry genes, discovery of novel strawberry genes, identification of cell-, tissue-, and stage-specific messenger RNAs, and useful tools for monitoring hormone levels and dynamics. Because Strawberry belongs to the Rosaceae family, which contains many economically important tree and woody perennial fruits (peach, apple, and raspberry) and nuts, as well as ornamental and wood crops, the project will help establish the diploid strawberry as a model for studying other herbaceous perennials as well as other Rosaceae species. In addition to community resources, the project will contribute to the understanding of fundamental questions about reproductive development, hormonal cross-talk, organ-to-organ signaling, and tissue-to-tissue signaling. The project will also provide interdisciplinary training opportunities that are integral to the research plan to undergraduate students from a local HBCU and two state universities. A bioinformatics summer workshop will be offered to high school teachers from inner city Baltimore to encourage quantitative thinking in high school students. Two postdoctoral fellows will follow a career development plan that encourages independent thinking, communications, and student mentoring.