CYTOLOGY OF PIGMENTATION IN RED-FLESHED KIWIFRUIT CULTIVATED IN DIFFERENT REGIONS

The inner pericarp red color of red-fleshed Actinidia chinensis ‘Hongyang’ kiwifruit is poorly developed and very pale when fruit are produced in regions with high temperatures.
The cytological reasons for this color difference remain unknown.
Two types of bodies resembling AVIs (anthocyanic vacuolar inclusions) were observed in the inner pericarp of ‘Hongyang’: vesicle-like bodies and smaller, intensely pigmented granules.
Vesicle-like bodies were confined to the small cells around the inner vascular bundles and their lateral vascular traces (VTs) from 30 DAF (days after flowering). ‘Hongyang’ kiwifruit produced in Wuhan (a high temperature region) contained more VTs cells with vesicle-like bodies than fruit from Wenchang (a region with lower temperatures). The granules began to appear in the large, septum-originating parenchymatous cells from 68 DAF. At 117 DAF, vesicle-like bodies were largely and continuously formed in fruit from Wenchang, and some of them became irregular and smaller.
However, they were seldom found in the same kind of cells in fruit from Wuhan.
Well-developed “AVI carriers” (AVIC) were found in the cytoplasm of parenchymatous cells of fruit from Wenchang, implying disintegration of the AVI-like bodies and release of anthocyanins.
It is suggested that more efficient release of anthocyanins to the vacuoles is probably responsible for the deeper red color of inner pericarp cells of the ‘Hongyang’ fruit from Wenchang.

VII International Symposium on Kiwifruit

Y. Wang, B. Luo, Y. Man, H. Huang

Actinidia chinensis, anthocyanins, AVI-like body, AVI carriers, ‘Hongyang’, microscopy

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2011.913.29