Expression profiling in grapevine berry during development and withering processes

Grapevine is a commercially important fruit crop that provides berries for direct consumption, juice pressing, drying (raisins), and fermentation to produce wine. The economic value of the crop has encouraged many researchers to study the physiological and molecular basis of berry development, particularly processes that affect wine quality. Post-harvest withering of grapevine berries is used in the production of dessert and fortified wines to alter must quality characteristics and to increase the concentration of simple sugars. Vitis vinifera cv Corvina berries were sampled during the 2006 growing season at four developmental time points and three additional time points during the 91-day post-harvest withering process. The four developmental time points were 59, 71, 98 and 112 days after fruit set, corresponding to pre-veraison, veraison, early ripening and late ripening, and the three withering time points (WI, WII and WIII) were 35, 56 and 91 days after harvest. Three biological replicates were taken at each time point resulting in a total of 21 samples.