Cells are small factories producing essential components for life. At certain moments they must also recycle those components in order to transform them into new building blocks or energy. This recycling process, called autophagy, it is very important for the development of life beings. Since plants cannot move, their only way to counteract stressful situation such nutrients depletion or water shortages is by modifying their metabolism and making a more efficient use of the available resources. Autophagy, by the recycling of unneeded or superfluous cellular components, has an important role in their response to these stressful situations
Strawberry is one of the most important crops in the south of Spain, being the first producer in Europe early in the year. Along its ripening, the strawberry fruit undergoes a number of changes as increasing in size, increasing in sweetness, color change and softening due to degradation of cell wall components. The present situation of global warming it is already having an effect over Spanish climate, with longer and dryer summers. This situation will undoubtedly have an impact in the crop production so the increase in the knowledge about the processes that direct fruit ripening and resistance to stress is crucial in order to develop varieties with better performance against these situations.
Based on previous data from the host group, we thought that autophagy could be taking place during strawberry ripening and might have a role in stress resistance. Therefore, the main objective of this project was to study autophagy during the development of strawberry fruit, with special emphasis on maturation/ripening process and in the response to abiotic stress.
