The Intragenesis and Synthetic Biology Approach towards Accelerating Genetic Gains on Strawberry: Development of New Tools to Improve Fruit Quality and Resistance to Pathogens

Abstract

Under climate change, the spread of pests and pathogens into new environments has a dramatic effect on crop protection control. Strawberry (Fragaria spp.) is one the most profitable crops of the Rosaceae family worldwide, but more than 50 different genera of pathogens affect this species. Therefore, accelerating the improvement of fruit quality and pathogen resistance in strawberry represents an important objective for breeding and reducing the usage of pesticides. New genome sequencing data and bioinformatics tools has provided important resources to expand the use of synthetic biology-assisted intragenesis strategies as a powerful tool to accelerate genetic gains in strawberry. In this paper, we took advantage of these innovative approaches to create four RNAi intragenic silencing cassettes by combining specific strawberry new promoters and pathogen defense-related candidate DNA sequences to increase strawberry fruit quality and resistance by silencing their corresponding endogenous genes, mainly during fruit ripening stages, thus avoiding any unwanted effect on plant growth and development. Using a fruit transient assay, GUS expression was detected by the two synthetic FvAAT2 and FvDOF2 promoters, both by histochemical assay and qPCR analysis of GUS transcript levels, thus ensuring the ability of the same to drive the expression of the silencing cassettes in this strawberry tissue. The approaches described here represent valuable new tools for the rapid development of improved strawberry lines.

Antifungal effects of volatile organic compounds produced by Trichoderma koningiopsis T2 against Verticillium dahliae

“…Due to the stable dormant structure microsclerotia, long-term variability, and coevolution with host plants ( Ju et al, 2020 ; Höfer et al, 2021 ; Starke et al, 2021 ), controlling the spread of Verticillium wilt in plants remains challenging using currently available methods, such as chemical control, genetic breeding, and optimization of the cropping pattern ( Ostos et al, 2020 ; Ramirez-Gil and Morales-Osorio, 2021 ; Zhang Y. L. et al, 2021 ). Disease resistance breeding is limited by a long breeding cycle and a lack of natural resistance resources, and chemical control has no beneficial effect on the control of soil-borne diseases ( Diaz-Rueda et al, 2021 ; Hanika et al, 2021 ; Sunico et al, 2022 ). With the social pressure to make agriculture more sustainable while maintaining a healthy environment, the identification of new strategies that can reduce the use of chemicals is necessary.…”

Designing artificial synthetic promoters for accurate, smart, and versatile gene expression in plants

“…(2021) MBR3 FBR3 blueberry red ringspot virus motif deletion, chimeric promoter constitutive expression in rice antibacterial antifungal activities tobacco, rice Sethi et al. (2021) FvAAT2 ; FvDOF2 strawberry gene editing fruit expressed strawberry Súnico et al. (2021) SD18-1 ; SD9-2 ; SS16-1 ; SS16-2 ; SS16-3 CRES from poplar SD and SS subdomains shuffled induced in whole plants osmotic stress inducible poplar, tobacco, Arabidopsis Yang et al.…”

GIFTdb: a useful gene database for plant fruit traits improving

“…Similarly, the Strawberry Genome Database focuses on strawberry genome data rather than strawberry fruit trait genetic data. Despite these limitations, the availability of these data sources has significantly contributed to the analysis of gene function and the improvement of fruit traits in crops such as strawberries, blueberries, and tomatoes (Chen, Wang, He, Wan, et al, 2022;L opez-Casado et al, 2023;Rey-Serra et al, 2022;S unico et al, 2021;Yue et al, 2016Yue et al, , 2017. Therefore, more efforts are needed to consolidate and integrate such dispersed gene data related to fruit traits in a comprehensive database to facilitate further research and application.…”