Candidate gene expression profiling in two contrasting tomato cultivars under chilling stress

Abstract

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum Mill.) is sensitive to chilling stress during all stages of plant development. Genetic variation for chilling tolerance exists between cultivated tomato and its related wild species, but intra-specific variation has not been thoroughly investigated so far. Seedlings of 63 tomato accessions were evaluated under low temperature and two contrasting cultivars were identified for the trait: Albenga and San Marzano, the former being more chillingtolerant. To clarify the molecular mechanisms of chilling tolerance in tomato, changes in candidate gene expressions in the two tomato genotypes were analysed, using quantitative RT-PCR. Candidate genes were chosen among those known to be induced by chilling and/or with putative roles in CBF/DREB and ROS-mediated pathways. Results show that besides a CBF regulon, whose function is conserved, ROS and C2H2-type zinc finger protein-mediated cold signalling pathways were also involved in chilling tolerance. Under the chilling stress, the up-regulation of respective transcripts was consistently higher in the chilling-tolerant genotype than in the chilling-sensitive ones

Changes in SBPase activity influence photosynthetic capacity, growth, and tolerance to chilling stress in transgenic tomato plants

“…Therefore, chilling is an environmental factor limiting growth and yield in tomato production23373839. We found a dramatic decrease in SBPase activity in tomato plants exposed to 5 °C of chilling.…”

Adaptation to low temperatures in the wild tomato species Solanum chilense

“…1; Zhao et al 2012;Hu et al 2013). An involvement of these seven genes in the cold stress response in Solanum (cultivated and wild tomato and potato species) was confirmed experimentally (Chen et al 1994;Baudo et al 1996;Weiss & Egea-Cortines 2009;Y añez et al 2009;Mboup et al 2012;Fischer et al 2013;Caffagni et al 2014;Karabudak et al 2014;Yuasa et al 2014).…”

“…; Caffagni et al . ). However, contribution of the transcriptional control of these genes to the stress response in plants is not fully understood.…”

“…Direction and magnitude of expression changes under stress are standard measures of the gene involvement in stress responses. ICE1 and FAD7 are constitutively expressed in plants (Miura et al 2007;Caffagni et al 2014). However, contribution of the transcriptional control of these genes to the stress response in plants is not fully understood.…”

Expression of an exogenous 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate deaminase gene in psychrotolerant bacteria modulates ethylene metabolism and cold induced genes in tomato under chilling stress

“…Moreover, expression of ethylene responsive transcription factor-13 (ETF-13) was also found to be reduced. Ethylene responsive transcription factor-13 has been recently reported to be one of the differentiation gene locus between cold tolerant and sensitive lines of tomato (Caffagni et al, 2014).…”