A vacuolar invertase gene SlVI modulates sugar metabolism and postharvest fruit quality and stress resistance in tomato

Abstract

Sugars act as signaling molecules to modulate various growth processes and enhance plant tolerance to various abiotic and biotic stresses. Moreover, sugars contribute to the postharvest flavor in fleshy fruit crops. To date, the regulation of sugar metabolism and its effect in plant growth, fruit ripening, postharvest quality, and stress resistance remains not fully understood. In this study, we investigated the role of tomato gene encoding a vacuolar invertase, hydrolyzing sucrose to glucose and fructose. SlVI is specifically expressed during the tomato fruit ripening process. We found that overexpression of SlVI resulted in increased leaf size and early flowering, while knockout of SlVI led to increased fruit sucrose content, enhanced fruit firmness, and elevated resistance of postharvest fruit to Botrytis cinerea. Moreover, the content of naringenin and total soluble solids was significantly increased in SlVI knockout fruit at postharvest stage. Transcriptome analysis showed a negative feedback regulation triggered by sucrose accumulation in SlVI knockout fruit resulting in a downregulation of BAM3 and AMY2, which are critical for starch degradation. Moreover, genes associated with cell wall, cutin, wax, and flavonoid biosynthesis and pathogen resistance were upregulated in SlVI knockout fruit. Conversely, the expression levels of genes involved in cell wall degradation were decreased in knockout fruit. These results are consistent with the enhanced postharvest quality and resistance. Our findings not only provide new insights into the relationship between tomato fruit sucrose content and postharvest fruit quality, but also suggest new strategies to enhance fruit quality and extend postharvest shelf life.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.32102409, No.32172643, No.32172271), the Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangxi (GuikeAA22068088-1), the Institutional Research Funding of Sichuan University (2022SCUNL105), the Applied Basic Research Category of Science and Technology Program of Sichuan Province (2021YFQ0071; 2022YFSY0059-1; 2021YFYZ0010-5-LH), and the Technology Innovation and Application Development Program of Chongqing (cstc2021jscx-cylhX0001).

Author contributions

M.L., Y.Wu, Y.Wang, and N.H planned and designed the research. Y.W., H.C., M.W., Y.Z., C.Y., and Q.Y. performed experiments and analyzed data. M.L. and Y.Wu wrote the manuscript. M.B., F.R., and B.V.d.P. helped improve the manuscript.

Data availability

The authors confirm that all the experimental data are available and accessible via the main text and/or the supplemental data.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Supplementary data

Supplementary data is available at Horticulture Research online.

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