Exogenous application of a cytokinin-like compound forchlorfenuron (CPPU) can promote fruit growth, although often at the expense of dry matter (DM), an important indicator of fruit quality. Actinidia chinensis var. deliciosa ‘Hayward’ fruit are very responsive to CPPU treatments, but the mechanism underlying the significant fruit weight increase and associated decrease in DM is unclear. In this study, we hypothesised that CPPU-enhanced growth increases fruit carbohydrate demand, but limited carbohydrate supply resulted in decreased fruit DM. During fruit development, CPPU effects on physical parameters, metabolites, osmotic pressure and transcriptional changes were assessed under conditions of both standard and a high carbohydrate supply. We showed that CPPU increased fruit fresh weight but the dramatic DM decrease was not carbohydrate limited. Enhanced glucose and fructose concentrations contributed to an increase in soluble carbohydrate osmotic pressure, which was correlated with increased water accumulation in CPPU-treated fruit and up-regulation of water channel aquaporin gene PIP2.4 at 49 days after anthesis. Transcipt analysis suggested that the molecular mechanism contributing to increased glucose and fructose concentrations was altered by carbohydrate supply. At standard carbohydrate supply, the early glucose increase in CPPU fruit was associated with reduced starch synthesis and increased starch degradation. When carbohydrate supply was high, the early glucose increase in CPPU fruit was associated with a general decrease in starch synthesis but up-regulation of vacuolar invertase and fructokinase genes. We conclude that CPPU affected fruit expansion by increasing the osmotically-driven water uptake and its effect was not carbohydrate supply-limited.

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