In vivo and ex vivo study on cell wall components as part of the network in tomato fruit during the ripening process

Abstract

Ripening is a process involving various morphological, physiological, and biochemical changes in fruits. This process is affected by modifications in the cell wall structure, particularly in the composition of polysaccharides and proteins. The cell wall assembly is a network of polysaccharides and proteoglycans named the arabinoxylan pectin arabinogalactan protein1 (APAP1). The complex consists of the arabinogalactan protein (AGP) core with the pectin domain including arabinogalactan (AG) type II, homogalacturonan (HG), and rhamnogalacturonan I (RG-I). The present paper aims to determine the impact of a disturbance in the synthesis of one constituent on the integrity of the cell wall. Therefore, in the current work, we have tested the impact of modified expression of the SlP4H3 gene connected with proline hydroxylase (P4H) activity on AGP presence in the fruit matrix. Using an immunolabelling technique (CLSM), an immunogold method (TEM), molecular tools, and calcium mapping (SEM-EDS), we have demonstrated that disturbances in AGP synthesis affect the entire cell wall structure. Changes in the spatio-temporal AGP distribution may be related to the formation of a network between AGPs with other cell wall components. Moreover, the modified structure of the cell wall assembly induces morphological changes visible at the cellular level during the progression of the ripening process. These results support the hypothesis that AGPs and pectins are required for the proper progression of the physiological processes occurring in fruits.

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the National Science Center, Poland (SONATA 16, grant number 2020/39/D/NZ9/00232). Also, this work has been supported by the COST Action ‘Roxy-COST’ (CA:18210) which is funded by the European Cooperation in Science & Technology. Also, work has been financed by the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union and Greek national funds through the Operational Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, under the call RESEARCH-CREATE-INNOVATE (project code: T2EDK-01332: n-Tomatomics - Development of new tomato cultivars by using -omics technologies).

Author contributions

N.K. Investigation, Methodology, Data curation, Visualization, Writing—original draft; A.L. Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition, Formal analysis, Writing—review & editing; M.L. Investigation (TEM imaging); D.D., S.B., K.B., P.G. Investigation (created the transgenic lines); P.K. Investigation (created the transgenic lines), Writing—review & editing; and A.Z. Writing—review & editing.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

The data underlying this article are available in the RepOD database [Leszczuk Agata, 2023, Studies on arabinogalactan proteins (AGPs) in fruits, file folder no A_6] at https://doi.org/10.18150/KMG7WI.

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