Résumé
The oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), a monocotyledonous species in the family Arecaceae, has not only an extraordinarily oil rich fleshy mesocarp, and presents an original model to examine the ripening regulatory networks in a monocot fruit tissue. The final stage of ripening involves cell separation events in specialized tissue layers between the mesocarp and pedicel that leads to fruit shedding and seed dispersal. A two-stage abscission process involving primary and adjacent abscission zones (AZs), plus high levels of unmethylated pectin and polygalacturonase (PG) activity in the AZ, warrant further investigation. We have examined in more detai! the abscission processes of the oil palm fruit using a multidisciplinary approach and have discovered other originalities underlying oil palm fruit shedding. Overall, the data provide a basis to compare with the wellstudied dicot model fruit species, and suggest sorne conservation but also diversification has occurred in these processes between monocots and eudicots. (Résumé d'auteur)