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(botany) the development of a fruit without fertilization or seeds

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出典(authority):フリー百科事典『ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』「2015/08/24 18:33:35」(JST)

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Seedless watermelon

In botany and horticulture, parthenocarpy (literally meaning virgin fruit) is the natural or artificially induced production of fruit without fertilization of ovules. The fruit is therefore seedless. Stenospermocarpy may also produce apparently seedless fruit, but the seeds are actually aborted while still small. Parthenocarpy (or stenospermocarpy) occasionally occurs as a mutation in nature; if it affects every flower the plant can no longer sexually reproduce but might be able to propagate by apomixis or by vegetative means.

However, parthenocarpy of some fruits on a plant may be of value. Up to 20% of the fruits of wild parsnip are parthenocarpic. The seedless wild parsnip fruit are preferred by certain herbivores, and thus serve as a "decoy defense" against seed predation.^[1] Utah juniper has a similar defense against bird feeding.^[2] The ability to produce seedless fruit when pollination is unsuccessful may be an advantage to a plant because it provides food for the plant's seed dispersers. Without a fruit crop, the seed dispersing animals may starve or migrate.

In some plants, pollination or other stimulation is required for parthenocarpy. This is termed stimulative parthenocarpy. Plants that do not require pollination or other stimulation to produce parthenocarpic fruit have vegetative parthenocarpy. Seedless cucumbers are an example of vegetative parthenocarpy, seedless watermelon is an example of stenospermocarpy.

Plants moved from one area of the world to another may not always be accompanied by their pollinating partner and the lack of pollinators has spurred human cultivation of parthenocarpic varieties. Some parthenocarpic varieties have been developed as genetically modified organisms.^[3]

Commercial importance

Seedlessness is seen as a desirable trait in edible fruit with hard seeds such as pineapple, banana, orange and grapefruit. Parthenocarpy is also desirable in fruit crops that may be difficult to pollinate or fertilize, such as tomato and summer squash. In dioecious species, such as persimmon, parthenocarpy increases fruit production because staminate trees do not need to be planted to provide pollen. Parthenocarpy is undesirable in nut crops, such as pistachio, where the seed is the edible part. Horticulturists have selected and propagated parthenocarpic cultivars of many plants, including fig, cactus pear (Opuntia), breadfruit and eggplant. Some plants, such as pineapple, produce seedless fruits when a single cultivar is grown because they are self-infertile. Some cucumbers produce seedless fruit if pollinators are excluded. Strange as it seems, seedless watermelon plants are grown from seeds. The seeds are produced by crossing a diploid parent with a tetraploid parent to produce triploid seeds.

When sprayed on flowers, any of the plant hormones gibberellin, auxin and cytokinin could stimulate the development of parthenocarpic fruit. This is termed artificial parthenocarpy. Plant hormones are seldom used commercially to produce parthenocarpic fruit. Home gardeners sometimes spray their tomatoes with an auxin to assure fruit production.^{[citation needed]}

Some parthenocarpic cultivars have been developed as genetically modified organisms.^[4]

Some parthenocarpic cultivars are of ancient origin. The oldest known cultivated plant is a parthenocarpic fig first grown at least 11,200 years ago.^[5]

In some climates, normally seeded pear cultivars will produce mainly seedless fruit due to lack of pollination.^[6]

Misconceptions

Most commercial seedless grape cultivars, such as 'Thompson Seedless', are not seedless because of parthenocarpy, but because of stenospermocarpy.^[7]
Parthenocarpy is sometimes claimed to be the equivalent of parthenogenesis in animals.^[8] That is incorrect because parthenogenesis is a method of asexual reproduction, with embryo formation without fertilization, and parthenocarpy involves fruit formation without seed formation. The plant equivalent of parthenogenesis is apomixis.

References

^ Zangerl AR, Nitao JK, Berenbaum MR (1991). "Parthenocarpic fruits in wild parsnip: decoy defence against a specialist herbivore". Evolutionary Ecology 5 (2): 136–45. doi:10.1007/BF02270830.
^ Fuentes M, Schupp EW (1998). "Empty seeds reduce seed predation by birds in Juniperus osteosperma" (PDF). Evolutionary Ecology 12 (7): 823–7. doi:10.1023/A:1006594532392. Archived from the original on 2006-11-10.
^ Acciarri, N.; Restaino, F.; Vitelli, G.; Perrone, D.; Zottini, M.; Pandolfini, T.; Spena, A.; Rotino, G. (2002). "Genetically modified parthenocarpic eggplants: Improved fruit productivity under both greenhouse and open field cultivation". BMC Biotechnology 2: 4. doi:10.1186/1472-6750-2-4. PMC 101493. PMID 11934354. edit
^ Pandolfini T, Rotino GL, Camerini S, Defez R, Spena A (2002). "Optimisation of transgene action at the post-transcriptional level: high quality parthenocarpic fruits in industrial tomatoes". BMC Biotechnol. 2: 1. doi:10.1186/1472-6750-2-1. PMC 65046. PMID 11818033.
^ Kislev ME, Hartmann A, Bar-Yosef O (June 2006). "Early domesticated fig in the Jordan Valley". Science 312 (5778): 1372–4. doi:10.1126/science.1125910. PMID 16741119.
^ R.L. Stebbins, W.M. Mellenthin, and P.B. Lombard (1981) Pollination & Commercial Varieties of Pears in Oregon Oregon State University Extension Service.
^ Mullins, M., Bouquet, A., Edward, L. (1992). Biology of the grapevine. Cambridge University Press, p. 75.
^ "parthenogenesis. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07". bartleby.com. Archived from the original on 28 June 2008.

External links

Weiss, J., Nerd, A. and Mizrahi, Y (1993). "Vegetative parthenocarpy in the cactus pear Opuntia ficus-indica (L.) Mill". Annals of Botany 72 (6): 521–6. doi:10.1006/anbo.1993.1140.

English Journal

Developmental, transcriptome, and genetic alterations associated with parthenocarpy in the grapevine seedless somatic variant Corinto bianco.

Royo C1, Carbonell-Bejerano P2, Torres-Pérez R1, Nebish A3, Martínez Ó4, Rey M4, Aroutiounian R3, Ibáñez J1, Martínez-Zapater JM1.
Journal of experimental botany.J Exp Bot.2016 Jan;67(1):259-73. doi: 10.1093/jxb/erv452. Epub 2015 Oct 9.
Seedlessness is a relevant trait in grapevine cultivars intended for fresh consumption or raisin production. Previous DNA marker analysis indicated that Corinto bianco (CB) is a parthenocarpic somatic variant of the seeded cultivar Pedro Ximenes (PX). This study compared both variant lines to determ
PMID 26454283

A transcriptomic approach to identify regulatory genes involved in fruit set of wild-type and parthenocarpic tomato genotypes.

Ruiu F1,2, Picarella ME1, Imanishi S3, Mazzucato A4.
Plant molecular biology.Plant Mol Biol.2015 Oct;89(3):263-78. doi: 10.1007/s11103-015-0367-1. Epub 2015 Aug 30.
The tomato parthenocarpic fruit (pat) mutation associates a strong competence for parthenocarpy with homeotic transformation of anthers and aberrancy of ovules. To dissect this complex floral phenotype, genes involved in the pollination-independent fruit set of the pat mutant were investigated by mi
PMID 26319515

Loss of Karma transposon methylation underlies the mantled somaclonal variant of oil palm.

Ong-Abdullah M1, Ordway JM2, Jiang N2, Ooi SE1, Kok SY1, Sarpan N1, Azimi N1, Hashim AT1, Ishak Z1, Rosli SK1, Malike FA1, Bakar NA1, Marjuni M1, Abdullah N1, Yaakub Z1, Amiruddin MD1, Nookiah R1, Singh R1, Low ET1, Chan KL1, Azizi N1, Smith SW2, Bacher B2, Budiman MA2, Van Brunt A2, Wischmeyer C2, Beil M2, Hogan M2, Lakey N2, Lim CC3, Arulandoo X3, Wong CK4, Choo CN4, Wong WC4, Kwan YY5, Alwee SS5, Sambanthamurthi R1, Martienssen RA6.
Nature.Nature.2015 Sep 24;525(7570):533-7. doi: 10.1038/nature15365. Epub 2015 Sep 9.
Somaclonal variation arises in plants and animals when differentiated somatic cells are induced into a pluripotent state, but the resulting clones differ from each other and from their parents. In agriculture, somaclonal variation has hindered the micropropagation of elite hybrids and genetically mo
PMID 26352475