Plant quality trait improvement has become a global necessity due to the world overpopulation. In particular, producing crop species with enhanced nutrients and health-promoting compounds is one of the main aims of current breeding programs. However, breeders traditionally focused on characteristics such as yield or pest resistance, while breeding for crop quality, which largely depends on the presence and accumulation of highly valuable metabolites in the plant edible parts, was left out due to the complexity of plant metabolome and the impossibility to properly phenotype it. Recent technical advances in high throughput metabolomic, transcriptomic and genomic platforms have provided efficient approaches to identify new genes and pathways responsible for the extremely diverse plant metabolome. In addition, they allow to establish correlation between genotype and metabolite composition, and to clarify the genetic architecture of complex biochemical pathways, such as the accumulation of secondary metabolites in plants, many of them being highly valuable for the human diet. In this review, we focus on how the combination of metabolomic, transcriptomic and genomic approaches is a useful tool for the selection of crop varieties with improved nutritional value and quality traits.
Plant tannins belong to the antioxidant compound family, which includes chemicals responsible for protecting biological structures from the harmful effects of oxidative stress. A wide range of plants and crops are rich in antioxidant compounds, offering resistance to biotic, mainly against pathogens and herbivores, and abiotic stresses, such as light and wound stresses. These compounds are also related to human health benefits, offering protective effects against cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases in addition to providing anti-tumor, anti-inflammatory, and anti-bacterial characteristics. Most of these compounds are structurally and biosynthetically related, being synthesized through the shikimate-phenylpropanoid pathways, offering several classes of plant antioxidants: flavonoids, anthocyanins, and tannins. Tannins are divided into two major classes: condensed tannins or proanthocyanidins and hydrolysable tannins. Hydrolysable tannin synthesis branches directly from the shikimate pathway, while condensed tannins are derived from the flavonoid pathway, one of the branches of the phenylpropanoid pathway. Both types of tannins have been proposed as important molecules for taste perception of many fruits and beverages, especially wine, besides their well-known roles in plant defense and human health. Regulation at the gene level, biosynthesis and degradation have been extensively studied in condensed tannins in crops like grapevine (Vitis vinifera), persimmon (Diospyros kaki) and several berry species due to their high tannin content and their importance in the food and beverage industry. On the other hand, much less information is available regarding hydrolysable tannins, although some key aspects of their biosynthesis and regulation have been recently discovered. Here, we review recent findings about tannin metabolism, information that could be of high importance for crop breeding programs to obtain varieties with enhanced nutritional characteristics.
This chapter describes the metabolic regulation underlying fruit development, focusing on central carbon metabolism. Much effort has been made to gain an understanding of the hormonal regulators of ripening in climacteric and nonclimacteric nonclimacteric fruits that mediate the physiological changes such as fruit softening and the accumulation of metabolites such as pigments, sugars, acids and volatiles. Currently, no analytical techniques can provide detection of all metabolites in all samples. However, the shift from single metabolite measurements to platforms that can provide information on hundreds of metabolites has led to the development of better models to describe the links both within the metabolites themselves and between the metabolism and other processes.
Strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa) fruits are an excellent source of L-ascorbic acid (AsA), a powerful antioxidant for plants and humans. Identifying the genetic components underlying AsA accumulation is crucial for enhancing strawberry nutritional quality. Here, we unravel the genetic architecture of AsA accumulation using an F1 population derived from parental lines’ Candonga’ and ‘Senga Sengana’, adapted to distinct Southern and Northern European areas. To account for environmental effects, the F1 and parental lines were grown and phenotyped in five locations across Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain). Fruit AsA content displayed normal distribution typical of quantitative traits and ranged five-fold, with significant differences among genotypes and environments. AsA content in each country and the average in all of them was used in combination with 6,974 markers for quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis. Environmentally stable QTLs for AsA content were detected in linkage group (LG) 3A, LG 5A, LG 5B, LG 6B and LG 7C. Candidate genes were identified within stable QTL intervals and expression analysis in lines with contrasting AsA content suggested that GDP-L-Galactose Phosphorylase FaGGP(3A), and the chloroplast-located AsA transporter gene FaPHT4;4(7C) might be the underlying genetic factors for QTLs on LG 3A and 7C, respectively. We show that recessive alleles of FaGGP(3A) inherited from both parental lines increase fruit AsA content. Furthermore, expression of FaGGP(3A) was two-fold higher in lines with high AsA. Markers here identified represent a useful resource for efficient selection of new strawberry cultivars with increased AsA content.
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Gibberellins (GAs) play a crucial role in modulating developmental processes throughout the plant life cycle. Among the processes in which GAs are involved, they are of significance during the transition and maintenance of the reproductive meristem, as well as in allowing the floral organs development. GAs are also able to regulate, alongside with auxin and cytokinin, the initial processes of fruit development, most likely because they are responsible for both division and cell expansion. It is unknown whether fluctuations in the endogenous content of GAs impact fruit development and metabolism during ripening. To investigate these questions, tomato mutant plants deficient in GAs biosynthesis (gib3, moderately deficient; gib2, intermediate deficiency and gib1, extremely deficient in GA) were used. Notably, gib2 and gib1 mutants were characterized by a complete interruption of their reproductive development at the floral bud level. Although gib3 plants displayed a slightly delay in fruit development, at the end of fruit ripening both WT and gib3 fruits were highly similar. Little differences were found between WT and gib3 mutant plants during floral development and total fruit yield. We demonstrated that reduced GAs in gib3 mutant did not promote morphological modifications in fruits and relatively few metabolic changes were observed between genotypes during fruit ripening. Overall, typical metabolic changes, including increments in amino acids and soluble sugars coupled with reductions in starch, were observed during ripening. Collectively, we demonstrate that GAs plays a significant role on change vegetative to reproductive stage, as well as on the binging of set fruit.
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