Histone deacetylase SlHDA7 impacts fruit ripening and shelf life in tomato

Abstract

Fruit ripening depends on the accurate control of ripening-related genes expression, with histone deacetylases (HDACs) playing crucial roles in transcriptional regulation. However, the functions of HDACs in fruit maturation remain largely unexplored. Here, we show that SlHDA7 acts as a suppressor of fruit ripening and functions as an H4ac HDAC in tomato. Deletion of SlHDA7 accelerated fruit ripening, while overexpression of SlHDA7 delayed the maturation process. Additionally, ethylene production and carotenoid biosynthesis significantly increased in slhda7 mutant fruits but decreased in SlHDA7-overexpressing fruits. Furthermore, SlHDA7 repress the expression of ethylene production and signaling, carotenoid metabolism, cell wall modification, and transcriptional regulation-related genes. RT-qPCR and ChIP-qPCR analyses indicated that SlHDA7 may deacetylate H4ac, leading to reduced transcript levels of ACO1, GGPPS2, Z-ISO, EXP1, and XYL1 mRNA, consequently suppressing fruit ripening. Moreover, SlHDA7 suppresses fruit ripening by targeting specific ripening-associated transcription factors (TFs) like RIN, FUL1, and ERF.E1, ultimately leading to delayed ripening and prolonged fruit shelf life. In summary, our findings indicate that SlHDA7 negatively modulates tomato fruit maturation by adjusting H4ac levels of these ripening-associated genes and key TFs.

Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 32272782, 32302625, and 32101567), Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (Nos. 2023A1515010369 and 2022A1515010518), South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Granted No: QNXM-202306), and Innovative Team Project of Guangdong Universities (Nos. 2022KCXTD051), Guangdong Science and Technology Plan Project (Grant No: 2023B1212060046).

Author contributions

G.J. designed the experiments. Y.Z., Z.L., and H.H. performed the experiments. Y.Z. and G.J. wrote the paper. X.D., Y.J., X.S., and H.Q. edited the manuscript. All authors discussed and approved the final manuscript.

Data availability

The RNA-Seq data have been deposited in the Dryad in the following repository (https://datadryad.org/stash/share/dFeS6NvPQK_xhouVJUpnPQYRN2R5VkjHNAvbqiel2R8).

Conflict of interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Supplementary data

Supplementary data is available at Horticulture Research online.

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