Background High temperature is one of the major abiotic stresses in tomato and greatly reduces fruit yield and quality. Identifying high-temperature stress-responsive (HSR) genes and breeding heat-tolerant varieties is an effective way to address this issue. However, there are few reports on the fine mapping of heat-tolerance quantitative trait locus (QTL) and the identification of HSR genes in tomato. Here, we applied three heat tolerance-related physiological indexes, namely, relative electrical conductivity (REC), chlorophyll content (CC) and maximum photochemical quantum efficiency (Fv/Fm) of PSII (photosystem II), as well as the phenotypic index, the heat injury index (HII), and conventional QTL analysis combined with QTL-seq technology to comprehensively detect heat-tolerance QTLs in tomato seedlings. In addition, we integrated the QTL mapping results with RNA-seq to identify key HSR genes within the major QTLs. Results A total of five major QTLs were detected: qHII-1-1, qHII-1-2, qHII-1-3, qHII-2-1 and qCC-1-5 (qREC-1-3). qHII-1-1, qHII-1-2 and qHII-1-3 were located, respectively, in the intervals of 1.43, 1.17 and 1.19 Mb on chromosome 1, while the interval of qHII-2-1 was located in the intervals of 1.87 Mb on chromosome 2. The locations observed with conventional QTL mapping and QTL-seq were consistent. qCC-1-5 and qREC-1-3 for CC and REC, respectively, were located at the same position by conventional QTL mapping. Although qCC-1-5 was not detected in QTL-seq analysis, its phenotypic variation (16.48%) and positive additive effect (0.22) were the highest among all heat tolerance QTLs. To investigate the genes involved in heat tolerance within the major QTLs in tomato, RNA-seq analysis was performed, and four candidate genes (SlCathB2, SlGST, SlUBC5, and SlARG1) associated with heat tolerance were finally detected within the major QTLs by DEG analysis, qRT-PCR screening and biological function analysis. Conclusions In conclusion, this study demonstrated that the combination of conventional QTL mapping, QTL-seq analysis and RNA-seq can rapidly identify candidate genes within major QTLs for a complex trait of interest to replace the fine-mapping process, thus greatly shortening the breeding process and improving breeding efficiency. The results have important applications for the fine mapping and identification of HSR genes and breeding for improved thermotolerance.

Injectable hydrogels in regeneration medicine can potentially mimic hierarchical natural living tissue and fill complexly shaped defects with minimally invasive implantation procedures. To achieve this goal, however, the versatile hydrogels that usually possess the nonporous structure and uncontrollable spatial agent release must overcome the difficulties in low cell‐penetrative rates of tissue regeneration. In this study, an adaptable microporous hydrogel (AMH) composed of microsized building blocks with opposite charges serves as an injectable matrix with interconnected pores and propagates gradient growth factor for spontaneous assembly into a complex shape in real time. By embedding gradient concentrations of growth factors into the building blocks, the propagated gradient of the nerve growth factor, integrated to the cell‐penetrative connected pores constructed by the building blocks in the nerve conduit, effectively promotes cell migration and induces dramatic bridging effects on peripheral nerve defects, achieving axon outgrowth of up to 4.7 mm and twofold axon fiber intensity in 4 days in vivo. Such AMHs with intrinsic properties of tunable mechanical properties, gradient propagation of biocues and effective induction of cell migration are potentially able to overcome the limitations of hydrogel‐mediated tissue regeneration in general and can possibly be used in clinical applications.

Salinity stress is a major limitation to global crop production. Sugar beet, one of the world's leading sugar crops, has stronger salt tolerant characteristics than other crops. To investigate the response to different levels of salt stress, sugar beet was grown hydroponically under 3 (control), 70, 140, 210 and 280 mM NaCl conditions. We found no differences in dry weight of the aerial part and leaf area between 70 mM NaCl and control conditions, although dry weight of the root and whole plant treated with 70 mM NaCl was lower than control seedlings. As salt concentrations increased, degree of growth arrest became obvious In addition, under salt stress, the highest concentrations of Na and Cl were detected in the tissue of petioles and old leaves. N and K contents in the tissue of leave, petiole and root decreased rapidly with the increase of NaCl concentrations. P content showed an increasing pattern in these tissues. The activities of antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase, catalase, ascorbate peroxidase and glutathione peroxidase showed increasing patterns with increase in salt concentrations. Moreover, osmoprotectants such as free amino acids and betaine increased in concentration as the external salinity increased. Two organic acids (malate and citrate) involved in tricarboxylic acid (TCA)-cycle exhibited increasing contents under salt stress. Lastly, we found that Rubisco activity was inhibited under salt stress. The activity of NADP-malic enzyme, NADP-malate dehydrogenase and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase showed a trend that first increased and then decreased. Their activities were highest with salinity at 140 mM NaCl. Our study has contributed to the understanding of the sugar beet physiological and metabolic response mechanisms under different degrees of salt stress.