Dr. Andrew Gleave and Dr. Yao Jia-Long, professor of The New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research, visited Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences (WBGCAS) on March 8. Their visit was at the invitation of Professor Yuepeng Han.

Dr. Andrew Gleave delivered a lecture entitled “Genomes and Genomics of Horticultural Crops at Plant & Food Research, New Zealand”. Firstly, he gave a brief introduction of fruit species, their production and planting areas in New Zealand. From the bioinformatics analysis of EST sequences of apples and kiwi fruit, he mainly introduced the new research progress of these two kinds of fruits in the New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research. In addition, Dr. Andrew Gleave made an overview of the genome and transcriptome sequencing analysis of apple, strawberry, European pear, kiwi fruit and other horticultural crops.

After the brief introduction of the Rosaceous plants flower morphology and ovary in the flower, Dr. Yao Jia-Long mainly introduced the molecular mechanism of AG-like gene that regulate petal number and fruit development in apple, influence of MdPI and MdMADS8 genes ectopic expression on fruit development and maturation. Furthermore, Dr. Yao Jia-Long showed the latest research progress of MiRNA, isolated from the apple genome. It has a strong impact on apple flower development. The MiRNA transgenic plants flower only consists of separated ovary and style, complete losing petals and stamens. Relevant results were published in The Plant Journal.

 Dr. Andrew Gleave delivering lecture