The research activities of the FRUIT-top group are aimed to explore fruit growth and formation in Arabidopsis thaliana and other model species, such as tomato.

The group is working to elucidate the molecular networks controlling fruit maturation. Transcriptomic studies have suggested several important regulators that the FRUIT-top team is nowadays characterizing.

The research activity is characterized by a functional genomics approach, where genetics and mutants are used to define the contours of the biological process, molecular biology, biochemistry and biophysics to understand the molecular details of fruit maturation.

Moreover, the FRUIT-top group has 25 years' experience in generating cDNA and genomic libraries; in particular the group owns several expression libraries suitable for yeast n-hybrid screenings.

The FRUIT-top group also use the yeast two hybrid tools to identify antimicrobial peptides specific for target proteins obtained from Oomycets, to be used as alternative solutions with a lower environmental impact to conventional pesticides