Global gene expression analysis in the pedicel abscission zone of tomato flowers by DNA microarray

In tomato, the mutants that lack the abscission zone (AZ) within pedicels are called a ‘jointless’ and are agronomically significant in that they increase the tomato fruit yield for industrial processing. We have employed DNA microarray expression analysis to identify genes with the potential to play a role in development of the pedicel abscission zone of tomato, and identified several classes of differentially regulated genes between pedicels of the AZ-forming line (wild-type) and pedicels of the non AZ-forming lines (jointless mutant and MC-suppressed transformant). Tomato flower pedicels were harvested at anthesis stage from the AZ-forming line (wild-type) and the non AZ-forming lines (jointless mutant and MC-suppressed transformant), and subjected to DNA microarray analyses. Experiments were performed twice with independently prepared samples.