Pod shatter-resistant Brassica fruit produced by ectopic expression of the FRUITFULL gene

ABSTRACT

Arabidopsis has proven to be extremely useful as a reference organism for studies in plant biology, and huge efforts have been employed to unravel various mechanisms of Arabidopsis growth. A major challenge now is to demonstrate that this wealth of knowledge can be used for global agricultural and environmental improvement. Brassica species are closely related to Arabidopsis and represent ideal candidates for model-to-crop approaches as they include important crop plants, such as canola. Brassica plants normally disperse their seeds by a pod-shattering mechanism. Although this mechanism is an advantage in nature, unsynchronized pod shatter constitutes one of the biggest problems for canola farmers. Here, we show that ectopic expression of the Arabidopsis FRUITFULL gene in Brassica juncea is sufficient to produce pod shatter-resistant Brassica fruit and that the genetic pathway leading to valve margin specification is conserved between Arabidopsis and Brassica. These studies demonstrate a genetic strategy for the control of seed dispersal that should be generally applicable to diverse Brassica crop species to reduce seed loss.