Application of Metabolomics to Improve Tomato Fruit Productivity and Quality

Abstract

Productivity and quality of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) fruit largely depend on the quantity and composition of its metabolites. Recent development of mass spectrometry technology has facilitated the simultaneous detection of a large number of metabolites. This opens the possibility of investigating the mechanisms of metabolic regulation that affect fruit productivity and quality, in conjunction with genetic and omics approaches. In this article, we review recent progress in the analysis of tomato fruit metabolites based on comprehensive metabolic profiling and the identification of genes and quantitative trait loci that alter tomato fruit metabolite profiles.

Differentiation of Four Varieties of Germinating Thai Colored Indica Rice (<i>Oryza sativa</i> L.) by Metabolite Profiling

“…Thus, it can be considered as an effective tool to assist in improving nutrition, safety, stability, processability, and other desirable characteristics to meet current consumer requirements worldwide (Dixon et al 2006;Iijima and Aoki 2009). …”

ADSA Foundation Scholar Award: Trends in culture-independent methods for assessing dairy food quality and safety: Emerging metagenomic tools

“…To facilitate understanding of the biological processes underlying mammalian milk genomics, the International Milk Genomics Consortium was established in 2004 (http://milkgenomics.org/). In terms of food products, omics technologies have been applied to various food commodities to carry out food component analysis, authenticity assessment, and contaminant analysis, and to characterize the dynamics of microbial communities (Casado et al, 2009;Iijima and Aoki, 2009;Chassy, 2010;Giribaldi and Giuffrida, 2010;Rohrmann et al, 2011;Weckx et al, 2011). As discussed below, the effects of food on the gut microbiome, which is the collection of genes and genomes of the microbiota, have also been recently investigated.…”

Metabolomics of a Model Fruit: Tomato

“…Through these studies we continue to develop an ever-growing picture of fruit metabolite composition and increase our fundamental understanding of the complex processes inherent in fleshy fruit growth and how this is under the influence of both internal (genetic) as well as external (environmental) factors. This knowledge will also lead to a number of practical applications (Iijima & Aoki, 2009). …”