Engineering melon plants with improved fruit shelf life using the TILLING approach.

BACKGROUND: Fruit ripening and softening are key traits that have an effect on food supply, fruit nutritional value and consequently, human health. Since ethylene induces ripening of climacteric fruit, it is one of the main targets to control fruit over ripening that leads to fruit softening and deterioration. The characterization of the ethylene pathway in Arabidopsis and tomato identified key genes that control fruit ripening. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: To engineer melon fruit with improved shelf-life, we conducted a translational research experiment. We set up a TILLING platform in a monoecious and climacteric melon line, cloned genes that control ethylene production and screened for induced mutations that lead to fruits with enhanced shelf life. Two missense mutations, L124F and G194D, of the ethylene biosynthetic enzyme, ACC oxidase 1, were identified and the mutant plants were characterized with respect to fruit maturation. The L124F mutation is a conservative mutation occurring away from the enzyme active site and thus was predicted to not affect ethylene production and thus fruit ripening. In contrast, G194D modification occurs in a highly conserved amino acid position predicted, by crystallographic analysis, to affect the enzymatic activity. Phenotypic analysis of the G194D mutant fruit showed complete delayed ripening and yellowing with improved shelf life and, as predicted, the L124F mutation did not have an effect. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: We constructed a mutant collection of 4023 melon M2 families. Based on the TILLING of 11 genes, we calculated the overall mutation rate of one mutation every 573 kb and identified 8 alleles per tilled kilobase. We also identified a TILLING mutant with enhanced fruit shelf life. This work demonstrates the effectiveness of TILLING as a reverse genetics tool to improve crop species. As cucurbits are model species in different areas of plant biology, we anticipate that the developed tool will be widely exploited by the scientific community.

Natural variation in CBF gene sequence, gene expression and freezing tolerance in the Versailles core collection of Arabidopsis thaliana.

BACKGROUND: Plants from temperate regions are able to withstand freezing temperatures due to a process known as cold acclimation, which is a prior exposure to low, but non-freezing temperatures. During acclimation, a large number of genes are induced, bringing about biochemical changes in the plant, thought to be responsible for the subsequent increase in freezing tolerance. Key regulatory proteins in this process are the CBF1, 2 and 3 transcription factors which control the expression of a set of target genes referred to as the "CBF regulon". RESULTS: To assess the role of the CBF genes in cold acclimation and freezing tolerance of Arabidopsis thaliana, the CBF genes and their promoters were sequenced in the Versailles core collection, a set of 48 accessions that maximizes the naturally-occurring genetic diversity, as well as in the commonly used accessions Col-0 and WS. Extensive polymorphism was found in all three genes. Freezing tolerance was measured in all accessions to assess the variability in acclimated freezing tolerance. The effect of sequence polymorphism was investigated by evaluating the kinetics of CBF gene expression, as well as that of a subset of the target COR genes, in a set of eight accessions with contrasting freezing tolerance. Our data indicate that CBF genes as well as the selected COR genes are cold induced in all accessions, irrespective of their freezing tolerance. Although we observed different levels of expression in different accessions, CBF or COR gene expression was not closely correlated with freezing tolerance. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that the Versailles core collection contains significant natural variation with respect to freezing tolerance, polymorphism in the CBF genes and CBF and COR gene expression. Although there tends to be more CBF and COR gene expression in tolerant accessions, there are exceptions, reinforcing the idea that a complex network of genes is involved in freezing tolerance and that the CBF genes alone cannot explain all differences in phenotype. Our study also highlights the difficulty in assessing the function of single transcription factors that are members of closely related gene families.