CRISPR/cas9 Allows for the Quick Improvement of Tomato Firmness Breeding
Fruit firmness is crucial for storability, making cultivating varieties with higher firmness a key target in tomato breeding. In recent years, tomato varieties primarily rely on hybridizing ripening mutants to produce F<sub>1</sub> hybrids to enhance firmness. However, the undesirable tr...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
MDPI AG
2024-12-01
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| Series: | Current Issues in Molecular Biology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/1467-3045/47/1/9 |
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| Summary: | Fruit firmness is crucial for storability, making cultivating varieties with higher firmness a key target in tomato breeding. In recent years, tomato varieties primarily rely on hybridizing ripening mutants to produce F<sub>1</sub> hybrids to enhance firmness. However, the undesirable traits introduced by these mutants often lead to a decline in the quality of the varieties. CRISPR/Cas9 has emerged as a crucial tool in accelerating plant breeding and improving specific target traits as technology iterates. In this study, we used a CRISPR/Cas9 system to simultaneously knock out two genes, <i>FIS1</i> and <i>PL</i>, which negatively regulate firmness in tomato. We generated single and double gene knockout mutants utilizing the tomato genetic transformation system. The fruit firmness of all knockout mutants exhibited a significant enhancement, with the most pronounced improvement observed in the double mutant. Furthermore, we assessed other quality-related traits of the mutants; our results indicated that the fruit quality characteristics of the gene-edited lines remained statistically comparable to those of the wild type. This approach enabled us to create transgenic-free mutants with diverse genotypes across fewer generations, facilitating rapid improvements in tomato firmness. This study offers significant insights into molecular design breeding strategies for tomato. |
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| ISSN: | 1467-3037 1467-3045 |