Abstract

Cytokinin plays a very important role in plant growth and development. The ancient hormone, cytokinin, has been diversified during land plant evolution performing different functions, including cell division, meristem maintenance, shoot initiation and growth, vascular development, nutrient uptake, chloroplast differentiation, light perception, leaf senescence and fruit ripening. Through a transcriptomic and qPCR analyses of peach fruits treated exogenously with trans-zeatin at different stages of fruits development, we have reported a set of cytokinin responsive genes expressed in peach fruits at three stages of fruit development: Pre-Lignification, Lignification and Post-Lignification of the endocarp. Comparison analyses of these peach cytokinin-responsive genes with published Arabidopsis meta-analyses reveal a novel set of 68 cytokinin-responsive genes conserved between these two species.