Inmunolocalización de proteasas y cambios anatómicos asociados a los procesos de senescencia o fructificación en tomate.

Flower anthesis is a crucial stage for the ovary's fate because endogenous stimuli -pollination or high hormonal level- or exogenous ones -hormonal application- induce the fruit set. In the absence of these stimuli, the ovary stops growing and starts the senescence process. It has previously observed that, in unpollinated ovaries, the senescence goes together with the increase in the activity/expression of certain thiolproteases, parameters that decrease during the early stage of fruit development. The objective was to analyze the location of proteases and anatomic changes associated with the fruit set or ovary senescence processes that take place during the early stage of the tomato fruit development obtained by natural pollination or by treatment with GA3. During the period in which the unpollinated ovaries keep their sensitivity to the hormone application, an accumulation of polypeptides related antigenically with papain thiolprotease was observed, mainly in the epidermis of the pericarp, showing no signs of alterations in the tissue integrity. Fruits of 8 days of development obtained with GA3, compared to the pollinated ones, showed an increase in the thickness of the pericarp related mainly with a higher enlargement of the mesocarp cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]