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Ahouvi Y, Haber Z, Zach YY, Rosental L, Toubiana D, Sharma D, Alseekh S, Tajima H, Fernie AR, Brotman Y, Blumwald E, Sade N. The Alteration of Tomato Chloroplast Vesiculation Positively Affects Whole-Plant Source-Sink Relations and Fruit Metabolism under Stress Conditions. Plant Cell Physiol 2023; 63:2008-2026. [PMID: 36161338 DOI: 10.1093/pcp/pcac133] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/22/2022] [Revised: 09/14/2022] [Accepted: 09/23/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
Changes in climate conditions can negatively affect the productivity of crop plants. They can induce chloroplast degradation (senescence), which leads to decreased source capacity, as well as decreased whole-plant carbon/nitrogen assimilation and allocation. The importance, contribution and mechanisms of action regulating source-tissue capacity under stress conditions in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) are not well understood. We hypothesized that delaying chloroplast degradation by altering the activity of the tomato chloroplast vesiculation (CV) under stress would lead to more efficient use of carbon and nitrogen and to higher yields. Tomato CV is upregulated under stress conditions. Specific induction of CV in leaves at the fruit development stage resulted in stress-induced senescence and negatively affected fruit yield, without any positive effects on fruit quality. Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (CRISPR/CAS9) knockout CV plants, generated using a near-isogenic tomato line with enhanced sink capacity, exhibited stress tolerance at both the vegetative and the reproductive stages, leading to enhanced fruit quantity, quality and harvest index. Detailed metabolic and transcriptomic network analysis of sink tissue revealed that the l-glutamine and l-arginine biosynthesis pathways are associated with stress-response conditions and also identified putative novel genes involved in tomato fruit quality under stress. Our results are the first to demonstrate the feasibility of delayed stress-induced senescence as a stress-tolerance trait in a fleshy fruit crop, to highlight the involvement of the CV pathway in the regulation of source strength under stress and to identify genes and metabolic pathways involved in increased tomato sink capacity under stress conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yoav Ahouvi
- School of Plant Sciences and Food Security, Tel Aviv University, P.O.B. 39040, 55 Haim Levanon St., Tel Aviv 6139001, Israel
| | - Zechariah Haber
- School of Plant Sciences and Food Security, Tel Aviv University, P.O.B. 39040, 55 Haim Levanon St., Tel Aviv 6139001, Israel
| | - Yair Yehoshua Zach
- School of Plant Sciences and Food Security, Tel Aviv University, P.O.B. 39040, 55 Haim Levanon St., Tel Aviv 6139001, Israel
| | - Leah Rosental
- Department of Life Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O.B. 653, 1 David Ben Gurion Blvd., Beer-Sheva 8410501, Israel
| | - David Toubiana
- School of Plant Sciences and Food Security, Tel Aviv University, P.O.B. 39040, 55 Haim Levanon St., Tel Aviv 6139001, Israel
| | - Davinder Sharma
- School of Plant Sciences and Food Security, Tel Aviv University, P.O.B. 39040, 55 Haim Levanon St., Tel Aviv 6139001, Israel
| | - Saleh Alseekh
- Department of Root Biology and Symbiosis, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, 1 Am Mühlenberg, Golm, Potsdam 14476, Germany
- Department of Plant Metabolomics, Center for Plant Systems Biology and Biotechnology, 139 Ruski Blvd., Plovdiv 4000, Bulgaria
| | - Hiromi Tajima
- Department of Plant Sciences, University of California, 1 Shields Ave., Davis, CA 95616, USA
| | - Alisdair R Fernie
- Department of Root Biology and Symbiosis, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, 1 Am Mühlenberg, Golm, Potsdam 14476, Germany
- Department of Plant Metabolomics, Center for Plant Systems Biology and Biotechnology, 139 Ruski Blvd., Plovdiv 4000, Bulgaria
| | - Yariv Brotman
- Department of Life Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O.B. 653, 1 David Ben Gurion Blvd., Beer-Sheva 8410501, Israel
| | - Eduardo Blumwald
- Department of Plant Sciences, University of California, 1 Shields Ave., Davis, CA 95616, USA
| | - Nir Sade
- School of Plant Sciences and Food Security, Tel Aviv University, P.O.B. 39040, 55 Haim Levanon St., Tel Aviv 6139001, Israel
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