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What causes the crease through the pericarp of a drupe fruit (peach, nectarine, olive)? It may just be in exocarp as @Ilan pointed out, but I assumed (perhaps wrongly), that the division continued through the pericarp. I'm also not sure if this true generically for drupe fruit, so I'm not sure which phylogenetic step down to take. Olives for example have a divot that seems to extend from the stem down, but it stops well before the midline of the fruit in most cases.

I assume the crease has something to the initial genesis of the fruit tissue, but I haven't found any arguments on it's formation. A more technical term might be "cleavage," but that was after some searching and not coming up with more certain term.

Botany is not my strong suite, but I recently entered into a collaboration where we will be making some recombinant alpha viruses (which is within my strong suite) that will infect drupe tissue. Finding good pathology papers has been difficult, and they tend to be specific (not trying to imply that's bad). Can anyone point towards a reference text/article on the genius of drupe fruit if the cause of the "crease" is not clear? Disruption of the crease seems to be a particular phenotype of infection for some strains, and I'm searching for the correct terminology and mechanisms that might be effected.

If I can get permission I will include photos of an infected vs control peach. In the mean time to clarify what I mean, the line that seems to transverse from one poll to the other of the fruit:

Peach: image of peach

Nectarine: image of nectarines on tree

On the sea mango it is pronounced, but on most other mango it seems like just a slight marking along the exocarp: sea mango image

Even the coconut seems to have at least one: coconut

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  • $\begingroup$ What do you mean "crease" - a part of a normal state, or abnormal sign? $\endgroup$
    – Ilan
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 18:10
  • $\begingroup$ @Ilan Part of the normal state. The outside of the fruit tends to have one line/partition/crease going down it from the outside. I'm uncertain if there is a technical name, which is where I could be failing in my lit review. I suppose I could put up a picture and circle what I mean. $\endgroup$
    – Atl LED
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 18:50
  • $\begingroup$ I think you should change pericarp to exocarp (pericarp is all-out-of-stone term) $\endgroup$
    – Ilan
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 18:52
  • $\begingroup$ @Ilan I actually don't know if this just on the surface at the fruit or if it extends down to the stone. That may vary based on species even. I'm not sure on how many species will be tested, but distorting the line in peaches seems to be an unexpected phenotype. $\endgroup$
    – Atl LED
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 19:25

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The structure you are relating to is a seam (suture). This seam is formed during development of a carpel.

The indentation of the seam varies and depends on the climate and environment: for example, water stress will give a very deep suture -

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Know any proteins related (screen via Western) or genes (q-PCR)? We could grab samples in various stages during carpel development (though this particular set of trees might not make it to next year). $\endgroup$
    – Atl LED
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 19:45
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    $\begingroup$ @AtlLED check this one out - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19264761 $\endgroup$
    – Ilan
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 19:47

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