Christine Böttcher

• PhD
• Researcher at The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation

Polyphenolic compounds are a class of phytonutrients that play important roles in plants and contribute to human health when incorporated into our diet through fruit consumption. A large proportion occur as glycoconjugates but the enzymes responsible for their glycosylation are poorly characterized. Here, we report the biochemical and structural ch...

Diel cycles of gene expression are thought to adapt plants to 24-h changes in environmental conditions. The circadian clock contributes to this process, but less is known about circadian programs in developing reproductive organs. While model plants and controlled conditions have contributed greatly to our knowledge of circadian clock function, the...

Climate change has resulted in earlier berry development and compressed harvests creating problems with harvesting and winery logistics and causing undesired modifications to grape and wine composition, such as elevated concentration of berry sugar and wine alcohol. Auxin treatment of grapevine bunches prior to veraison can counteract these adverse...

Background and Aims Climate change is prompting earlier grape ripening and harvest compression causing quality and logistical problems for growers and winemakers. Application of 1-naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) offers a management tool to delay ripening and expand the harvest window. This study extends previous findings about the effect of NAA on Sh...

Key message Auxin treatment of grape (Vitis vinifera L.) berries delays ripening by inducing changes in gene expression and cell wall metabolism and could combat some deleterious climate change effects. Abstract Auxins are inhibitors of grape berry ripening and their application may be useful to delay harvest to counter effects of climate change....

Background and Aims The climate‐change driven uncoupling of grape (Vitis vinifera L.) berry ‘sugar‐ripeness’ and ‘flavour‐ripeness’ necessitates an improved understanding of the sugar/flavour nexus. Methods and Results Analysis of grape metabolites and wine volatiles derived from Riesling berries of peduncle‐girdled and Control bunches over the co...

Background and Aims The climate change‐related acceleration of grape (Vitis vinifera L.) berry ‘sugar‐ripeness’ requires an improved understanding of the relationship between berry sugar concentration and wine flavour and aroma. Methods and Results Peduncle‐girdling of Shiraz bunches at three post‐veraison stages identified sugar‐related changes t...

Background and Aims Many variables affect the volatile profile of wine during production, and grape composition is an important source of varietal characters and metabolites for yeast during fermentation. In order to manage wine style through changes in grape composition, the knowledge of when important changes occur in the berries is essential. Th...

The detection of a range of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in the soil environment has led to a number of publications demonstrating uptake by crops, however very few studies have explored the potential for impacts on plant development as a result of API uptake. This study investigated the effect of carbamazepine and verapamil (0.005 - 10...

Background: Cytokinins are known to play an important role in fruit set and early fruit growth, but their involvement in later stages of fruit development is less well understood. Recent reports of greatly increased cytokinin concentrations in the flesh of ripening kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa (A. Chev.) C.F. Liang & A.R. Ferguson) and grapes (V...

Pre-veraison treatment of Shiraz berries with either 1-napthalene acetic acid (NAA) or Ethrel delayed the onset of ripening and harvest. NAA was more effective than Ethrel, delaying harvest by 23 days, compared to six days for Ethrel. Sensory analysis of wines from NAA-treated fruit showed significant differences in ten attributes, including higher...

The plant hormone jasmonic acid (JA) is essential for stress responses and the formation of reproductive organs, but its role in fruit development and ripening is unclear. Conjugation of JA to isoleucine is a crucial step in the JA signaling pathway since only JA-Ile is recognized by the jasmonate receptor. The conjugation reaction is catalyzed by...

Over the recent past a reduction of the time required for grapes to achieve sugar-ripeness, possibly a result of climate change, has been observed in many countries. This has raised the issue of the potential disconnect between flavor-ripeness and sugar accumulation. An experiment using Riesling was conducted to test the relationship between sugar...

Fruit development is controlled by plant hormones, but the role of hormone interactions during fruit ripening is poorly understood. Interactions between ethylene and the auxin indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) are likely to be crucial during the ripening process, since both hormones have been shown to be implicated in the control of ripening in a range of...

Grape (Vitis vinifera L.) berries are considered to be nonclimacteric fruit as they do not exhibit a large rise in ethylene production or respiration rate at the onset of ripening (veraison). However, ethylene may still play a role in berry development and in ripening in particular. (2-Chloroethyl)phosphonic acid (CEPA), an ethylene-releasing reage...

Interactions between phytohormones play important roles in the regulation of plant growth and development, but knowledge of the networks controlling hormonal relationships, such as between oxylipins and auxins, is just emerging. Here, we report the transcriptional regulation of two Arabidopsis YUCCA genes, YUC8 and YUC9, by oxylipins. Similarly to...

Auxins are important for plant growth and development, including the control of fruit ripening. Conjugation to amino acids by indole-3-acetic acid (IAA)-amido synthetases is an important part of auxin homeostasis. The structure of the auxin-conjugating Gretchen Hagen3-1 (GH3-1) enzyme from grapevine (Vitis vinifera), in complex with an inhibitor (a...

An improved understanding of the hormonal control of grape (Vitis vinifera L.) berry ripening and the ability to manipulate it are of interest scientifically and commercially. Grapes are nonclimacteric fruit with ethylene unlikely to have a principal role in berry ripening but there are several other hormones thought to be involved. In this work, a...

This chapter describes the role of plant hormones during the development of the nonclimacteric grape berry. Advances in analytical methods have enabled a better understanding of hormone accumulation although the role of some hormones, for example ethylene, during berry development, remains unclear. Even though the biosynthesis pathways for a number...

An important process for the regulation of auxin levels in plants is the inactivation of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) by conjugation to amino acids. The conjugation reaction is catalysed by IAA-amido synthetases belonging to the family of GH3 proteins. Genetic approaches to study the biological significance of these enzymes have been hampered by larg...

Nine Gretchen Hagen (GH3) genes were identified in grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) and six of these were predicted on the basis of protein sequence similarity to act as indole-3-acetic acid (IAA)-amido synthetases. The activity of these enzymes is thought to be important in controlling free IAA levels and one auxin-inducible grapevine GH3 protein, GH...

Background and Aims: Pre-veraison auxin treatments can delay grape berry ripening, but there is little information about their effects on berry development and wine composition. The aim of this study was to further investigate these effects and explore the practical implications of delaying ripening. Methods and Results: Treatment of pre-veraison V...

In fleshy fruit, levels of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), the most abundant auxin, decline towards the onset of ripening. The application of auxins to immature fruit can delay the ripening processes. However, the mechanisms by which the decrease in endogenous IAA concentrations and the maintenance of low auxin levels in maturing fruit are achieved rem...

One of the most challenging questions in modern plant science is how plants regulate their morphological and developmental adaptation in response to changes in their biotic and abiotic environment. A comprehensive elucidation of the underlying mechanisms will help shed light on the extremely efficient strategies of plants in terms of survival and p...

Grape berry ripening, like many other developmental processes, clearly involves the coordination of a large number of events. Some metabolic activities that occur prior to véraison, such as photosynthesis and organic acid accumulation, are either turned off at véraison or are at least down regulated. Other processes, such as the accumulation of ant...

cyclo-Oxylipin-galactolipids (cGL) are mono- or digalactosyldiglycerides carrying a cyclo-oxylipin in the sn1- and/or sn2-position or esterified to the galactose moiety. These compounds were recently identified in Arabidopsis thaliana. We provide evidence that cGL are mainly, if not exclusively, part of the thylakoid and can be hydrolysed by lipoly...

Jasmonate, die neben der Jasmonsäure (JA) auch ihre biosynthetischen Vorstufen, wie die 12-oxo-Phytodiensäure (OPDA), umfassen, stellen eine Phytohormongruppe dar, die pflanzliche Entwicklungs- und Abwehrprozesse beeinflusst. Phytodiensäuren wurden in jüngster Zeit auch als Bestandteil einer neuen Galactolipidklasse aus Arabidopsis thaliana, den so...