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To unravel the roles of soluble acid invertase in muskmelon (Cucumis melo L.), its activity in transgenic muskmelon plants was reduced by an antisense approach. For this purpose, a 1038 bp cDNA fragment of muskmelon soluble acid invertase was expressed in antisense orientation behind the 35S promoter of the cauliflower mosaic virus. The phenotype of the antisense plants clearly differed from that of control plants. The transgenic plant leaves were markedly smaller, and the stems were obviously thinner. Transmission electron microscopy revealed that degradation of the chloroplast membrane occurred in transgenic leaves and the number of grana in the chloroplast was significantly reduced, suggesting that the slow growth and weaker phenotype of the transgenic plants may be due to damage to the chloroplast ultrastructure, which in turn resulted in a decrease in net photosynthetic rate. The sucrose concentration increased and levels of acid invertase decreased in transgenic fruit, and the fruit size was 60% smaller than that of the control. In addition, transgenic fruit reached full-slip at 25 d after pollination (DAP), approximately 5 d before the control fruit (full-slip at 30 DAP), and this accelerated maturity correlated with a dramatic elevation of ethylene production at the later stages of fruit development. Together, these results suggest that soluble acid invertase not only plays an important role during muskmelon plant and fruit development but also controls the sucrose content in muskmelon fruit.

Studies on the effects of sunlight and temperature on the ultrastructure and functions of leaf chloroplasts of cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) in solar greenhouse showed that the size of cells, chloroplasts, and starch grains and the number of chloroplast, grana, grana lamella and grana thickness of leaf chloroplast of cucumber increased with lowering leaf position. The microstructure of leaves and the ultrastructure of chloroplast of cucumber leaves were different because of the difference of temperature and sunlight among different months. In January, the light intensity was lower, and the cell size of cucumber leaves was larger than that in May, but the number of chloroplasts was less than that in May. The relationships between photosynthetic rate (Pn) and ultrastructure of chloroplast of cucumber leaves were not direct and very close. The Pn of the fourth leaf of cucumber was the highest, that of the first spreading out leaf was the second, and the near ground leaves had the lowest Pn. The primary reasons of the difference of Pn among different position leaves were that the leaf age and accepted light intensity were different. If different position leaves of cucumber accepted the same sunlight intensity, the difference of Pn among leaves of different positions would be smaller. Less efficient light hours and lower light intensity were the main factors influencing cucumber growth and yield in solar greenhouse. Comparatively, under sunny circumstance, the restriction of temperature on cucumber growth was very small, but in cloudy days, lower temperature induced by low light intensity became a key factor that restricted cucumber growth.