Challenges and Prospects of New Plant Breeding Techniques for GABA Improvement in Crops: Tomato as an Example

Abstract

Over the last seven decades, g-aminobutyric acid (GABA) has attracted great attention from scientists for its ubiquity in plants, animals and microorganisms and for its physiological implications as a signaling molecule involved in multiple pathways and processes. Recently, the food and pharmaceutical industries have also shown significantly increased interest in GABA, because of its great potential benefits for human health and the consumer demand for health-promoting functional compounds, resulting in the release of a plethora of GABA-enriched products. Nevertheless, many crop species accumulate appreciable GABA levels in their edible parts and could help to meet the daily recommended intake of GABA for promoting positive health effects. Therefore, plant breeders are devoting much effort into breeding elite varieties with improved GABA contents. In this regard, tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), the most produced and consumed vegetable worldwide and a fruit-bearing model crop, has received much consideration for its accumulation of remarkable GABA levels. Although many different strategies have been implemented, from classical crossbreeding to induced mutagenesis, new plant breeding techniques (NPBTs) have achieved the best GABA accumulation results in red ripe tomato fruits along with shedding light on GABA metabolism and gene functions. In this review, we summarize, analyze and compare all the studies that have substantially contributed to tomato GABA breeding with further discussion and proposals regarding the most recent NPBTs that could bring this process to the next level of precision and efficiency. This document also provides guidelines with which researchers of other crops might take advantage of the progress achieved in tomato for more efficient GABA breeding programs.

The versatile GABA in plants

“…GABA is a ubiquitous four-carbon non-proteinogenic amino acid found in both eukaryotes and prokaryotes. In plants, GABA was first found in potato (Solanum tuberosum) tubers more than 70 years ago.1 Henceforth, its physiological role has been widely studied [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] and to date, it has been confirmed not only as a metabolite, but also as a signal molecule in plants. [13][14][15][16] Its functional versatility includes responding to abiotic and biotic stress factors, maintaining carbon/nitrogen (C/N) balance, and regulating plant development.…”

Application of CRISPR/Cas9 in Crop Quality Improvement

“…Undoubtedly, GABA-rich crops have a beneficial effect on human health. However, blindly pursuing high content of GABA could not only provoke a reduction in glutamate but also lead to a defective phenotype in fruit [ 79 ]. Li et al (2018) used a multiplex CRISPR/Cas9 method to delete SlGABA-Ts and SlSSADH , which resulted in GABA levels increasing by about 20-fold but with accompanying high penalties in tomato fruit size and yield [ 80 ].…”

Variation for Composition and Quality in a Collection of the Resilient Mediterranean ‘de penjar’ Long Shelf-Life Tomato Under High and Low N Fertilization Levels

“…Tomato accumulate several-fold higher content of glutamic acid in their fruits than other vegetables such as pepper, onion, or carrot (Haytowitz et al, 2011). On the one hand, aspartic and glutamic acids function as other amino acid precursors in plants, e.g., glutamic acid constitutes the first element of the GABA (γ aminobutyric acid) synthesis, a bioactive molecule of recent interest for its health-promoting potential (Gramazio et al, 2020). On the other hand, those are the only amino acids that are related to taste, especially glutamic acid.…”