Improvement and application of vacuum-infiltration system in tomato

Abstract

The Agrobacterium -mediated transient expression system has been developed and applied to various plants as an alternative to stable transformation. However, its application in tomatoes is still limited due to low expression efficiency. In this study, we describe an improved vacuum-infiltration system that can be used in both tomato fruits and leaves. Notably, this study is the first report of vacuum infiltration in attached tomato fruits. The feasibility of the improved vacuum-infiltration system in Micro-Tom tomato was confirmed by various assays, including multiple fluorescent protein expression analysis, β -glucuronidase activity analysis, and RUBY reporter visualization. Subsequently, the improved vacuum-infiltration system was successfully applied to tomato biotechnology research. Herein, a trichome-specific promoter in tomato was identified that can drive the directional synthesis of specific plant natural products (PNPs). Additionally, based on the assessment results of the improved vacuum-infiltration system, we obtained a flavonoid-rich tomato variety through the stable transformation of AmRosea and AmDelila. In a significant practical application, we successfully synthesized the high-value scutellarin in tomato, which provides an alternative route for the production of PNPs from plants. In addition, the improved vacuum-infiltration system has been demonstrated to be suitable for commercial tomato varieties (‘Emerald’ and ‘Provence’) as well. The improved vacuum-infiltration system not only speeds up fundamental and applied research in tomato but also offers an additional powerful tool for advancing tomato synthetic biology research.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported, in whole or in part, by the National Key R&D Program of China (grant number: 2018YFA0900600), and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (grant number: INV-027291). Under the grant conditions of the Foundation, a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Generic License has already been assigned to the Author Accepted Manuscript version that might arise from this submission.

Author contributions

X.Y. and K.T. conceived and designed the research; H.L., X.Y., Y.Z., and X.H. performed the experiments; A.T., L.L., W.H., K.W., J.S., and Q.M. analysed the data; X.Y. and A.T. wrote the manuscript; all the authors revised the manuscript.

Data availability

The datasets presented in this study can be found in online repositories. The names of the repository/repositories and accession number(s) can be found in the article/supplementary data.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Supplementary data

Supplementary data is available at Horticulture Research online.

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