Fruit shape loci sun, ovate, fs8.1 and their interactions affect seed size and shape in tomato

Abstract

Seed size and shape are not only critical for plant reproduction and dispersal, but also important agronomic traits. Tomato fruit shape loci sun, ovate and fs8.1 regulate the morphology of fruit, flower, leaf and stem, and recently their functions in seed morphogenesis have also been noticed. However, mechanism underlying seed morphology variation has not been systematically investigated yet. Thus, using the near isogenic lines (NILs) harboring one, two or three of the fruit shape loci, histological, physiological and transcriptional bases of seed morphology change have been studied. sun and ovate showed potential abilities in decreasing seed size, whereas, fs8.1 had a potential ability in increasing this parameter. Interactions between two loci and the interaction among three loci all led to significant decrease of seed size. All the loci significantly down-regulated seed shape index (SSI), except for sun/fs8.1 double NIL, which resulted in the reductions in both seed length and width and finally led to a decreased trend of SSI. Histologically, seed morphological changes were mainly attributed to the cell number variations. Transcriptional and physiological analyses discovered that phytohormone-, cytoskeleton- as well as sugar transportation- and degradation-related genes were involved in the regulation of seed morphology by the fruit shape loci.

Preliminary Study on the Formation Mechanism of Malformed Sweet Cherry (Prunus avium L.) Fruits in Southern China Using Transcriptome and Metabolome Data

“…The auxin content in sweet cherry fruit was the highest, followed by ethylene, GAs, and abscisic acid. Auxin is a multifunctional plant hormone that is involved in almost all activities in the plant life cycle, especially in fruit development and fruit setting [ 17 ]. The exogenous application of auxin can delay the maturation of tomato fruit.…”

New Advances in the Study of Regulation of Tomato Flowering-Related Genes Using Biotechnological Approaches

“…OFPs (OVATE family proteins ) are a class of proteins with a conserved OVATE domain. OFPs interact with various transcription factors, including KNOX and BELL [93,138], and also directly regulate the expression of auxins, gibberellins [139,140], and ethylene-related genes [141]. The heterologous expression of OFP1 and MADS1 in the ovate mutant compensated for the elongated fruit phenotype [142].…”

“…The IQ67-domain (IQD) proteins regulate Ca 2+ signaling and plant development through interactions with calmodulins, and SUN is one of them. SUN affects the expression of auxin-related genes [150,151] and brassinosteroids [140]. SUN24 negatively regulates the expression of crucial abscisic acid signaling genes [152].…”