ABSTRACT
Background e debate on genetically modied (GM) crop plants has been focused on two main uncertainties: 1) whether a GM plant diers from its non-GM progenitors only in the introduced trait of interest, 2) whether a GM plant is safe in the environment with respect to gene ow and seed dispersal. To address these questions, we have chosen parthenocarpy, the development of the fruit in absence of fertilization, to evaluate the equivalence of GM and non-GM fruit and to evaluate the advantages of parthenocarpy produced by genetic engineering compared to traditional methods. In this work, we present an analysis of parthenocarpic tomato fruit obtained from eld-grown GM plants to address some aspects of the equivalence of GM fruit.
