Deploying deep Solanaceae domestication and virus biotechnology knowledge to enhance food system performance and diversity

Abstract

Our knowledge of crop domestication, genomics, and of the plant virosphere unevenly represents the taxonomic distribution of the global biodiversity, and, as we show here, is significantly enriched for the Solanaceae. Within the family, potato, tomato, eggplant, pepper, and over 100 lesser-known edible species play important nutrition and cultural roles in global and local food systems. Technologies using engineered viruses are transitioning from proof-of-concept applications in model plants to the precise trait breeding of Solanaceae crops. Leveraging this accumulated knowledge, we highlight the potential of virus-based biotechnologies for fast-track improvement of Solanaceae crop production systems, contributing to enhanced global and local human nutrition and food security.

Acknowledgements

F.P. is supported by a ‘Juan de la Cierva Incorporación’ contract (IJC2019-039970-I) from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Spain), and M.U. by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01-101110621) from the European Commission. F.P. gratefully acknowledges the grants MiniVi (ELIXIR-IIB, Cineca, Italy) and BCV-2023-1-0021 (Red Española de Supercomputación, Spain), and resources provided by Centro de Supercomputación de Galicia (CESGA, Spain). C.-T.K. is supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT), Republic of Korea (Grant No. 2022R1C1C1002941).

Author contributions

F.P. conceived the work, performed data analysis and drafted the manuscript; M.U., R.C. and C.-T.K. collaborated in the manuscript preparation. All authors revised and approved the final version.

Data availability

Supplementary data accompanies this article. Requests for further information should be directed to and will be fulfilled by the corresponding author.

Conflict of Interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Supplementary Data

Supplementary data is available at Horticulture Research online.

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