ARAL-MEDIATED TRANSCRIPTIONAL REGULATION IN STRAWBERRY FRUIT ACIDITY CONTROL

The major goal of this seed grant is to demonstrate that the strawberry transcription factor gene called ARAL acts as a negative regulator in the control of fruit organic acid level, which provides a potential genetic means to improve the fruit acidity and sweetness trait. There are three objectives: 1) Demonstrating that alteration of ARAL expression will cause consistent changes in fruit acidity, 2) showing that ARAL expression level correlates with differential acidity in various strawberry accessions, and 3) identifying the direct target genes of ARAL.