Discovery by Salk-lead team could lead to better ways to
control growth and ripening of agricultural plants
It's common wisdom that one rotten apple in a barrel spoils
all the other apples, and that an apple ripens a green banana if they are put
together in a paper bag. Ways to ripen, or spoil, fruit have been known for
thousands of years-as the Bible can attest-but now the genes underlying these
phenomena of nature have been revealed.
In the online journal eLIFE, a large international group of
scientists, led by investigators at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies,
have traced the thousands of genes in a plant that are activated once ethylene,
a gas that acts as a plant growth hormone, is released.