ISHS Acta Horticulturae 760: XXVII International Horticultural Congress - IHC2006: II International Symposium on Plant Genetic Resources of Horticultural Crops
QUALITIES OF TOMATO FRUIT MUTANTS INDUCED BY GAMMA RAY IRRADIATION |
| Authors: | S. Imanishi, A. Noguchi, T. Watase, M. Nagata |
| Keywords: | Solanum lycopersicum, Micro-Tom, surface color, carotenoid |
| Abstract:
Fruit development and ripening are complex, genetically programmed processes. Identifying the components of the biological switches for these processes is important for understanding the mechanism of fruit physiology. Mutational approaches have been highly useful in the study of the genetic and molecular bases of traits. In this study, we used a tomato Solanum lycopersicum ‘Micro-Tom.’ It is well suited for large-scale mutagenesis and functional genomics owing to its small size and rapid life cycle. To obtain information on the genetic mechanism of fruit physiology, we constructed ‘mutation libraries’ induced by irradiation with gamma rays. The screening of 2,500 M2 families (3 sibs per line) have been visually phenotyped in the field up to date, and 329 candidates of mutants have exhibited variation from the wild type in one or more visually observable characteristics. We found that the leaf color of one of them was pale. The mutant also showed pale fruit surface color. There was no significant difference between the mutant and WT in the content of carotenoid and expression level of the genes involved in carotenoid biosynthesis. These results suggest that there could be more mechanisms controlling ripening and more analysis of this mutation library could help to understand this process. | |
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