Joint NSF/ERA-CAPS: RegulaTomE - Regulating Tomato Quality through Expression

PI: Harry J. Klee（佛罗里达大学盖恩斯维尔分校）；CoPIs: James J. Giovannoni和Zhangjun Fei （USDA-ARS/ Boyce Thompson植物研究所）Cathie Martin （John Innes中心，英国诺里奇）、Alisdair Fernie（马克斯·普朗克分子植物生理学研究所，德国Golm）、Bjoern Usadel（亚琛大学，德国亚琛）和Dani Zamir（耶路撒冷希伯来大学，以色列Rehovot）生产者面临着在减少投入和对环境影响的情况下生产更多、更便宜的食物的压力。消费者需要的是更健康、更美味的食品，而不是今天那些注重数量而不是质量的典型生产系统所生产的食品。这个项目的重点是西红柿，世界上最重要的经济水果/蔬菜作物。本项目的总体目标是阐明植物对干旱等环境胁迫反应的遗传机制，并了解环境如何影响番茄风味和营养品质的内源化学。这项研究将为番茄和其他作物的农艺和品质改良提供机械知识和切实的工具。具体来说，自然发生的基因版本允许对非生物压力做出更强大的反应，并积极影响风味和营养质量，将被识别并传播给公共和私人育种者，以便为他们的选择过程提供信息。这些资源的有效性和所获得的知识的重要性将确保该项目通过利用目前未开发的未充分利用的野生番茄品种的遗传信息，直接为粮食安全和可持续水果种植做出贡献。在外联和培训方面，该项目将为大西洋两岸的本科生、研究生以及博士后科学家提供独特的交叉培训机会。此外，该项目将为来自福特谷州立大学、弗雷斯诺加州州立大学和萨克拉门托加州州立大学的本科生提供基因组学和生物信息学的暑期研究实习机会，这些都是少数族裔服务机构。该项目的两个目标是确定番茄品质性状的代谢途径的转录调控的重要性，并在分子水平上确定这些转录调控。所选择的品质性状包括决定抗氧化能力、影响保质期和营养价值的性状以及决定水果风味的性状。还将确定促进非生物胁迫耐受性的基因座，以开发更有营养和可持续的作物。野生物种与番茄杂交产生的渐渗系（ILs）中可用的自然变异将用于评估转录调控的重要性，鉴定调控基因和评估表观遗传变异。为了实现这些目标，将开发并免费提供包括番茄红素及其代谢物基因组参考序列、IL果实DNA甲基化和转录组谱在内的资源。成果包括调控基因鉴定和水果品质代谢工程的新工具。这一美欧合作项目将允许开发在国家层面上无法获得的大规模工具和资源。所有产生的数据将在联盟内自由和持续地共享。具体来说，基于序列的数据集将可以通过一个联盟数据库以及包括GenBank、欧洲生物信息学研究所（EBI）和SOL基因组学网络（SGN）在内的公共数据存储库访问。

PI: Harry J. Klee (University of Florida-Gainesville) CoPIs: James J. Giovannoni and Zhangjun Fei (USDA-ARS/ Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research)ERA-CAPS Collaborators: Cathie Martin (John Innes Centre, Norwich, United Kingdom), Alisdair Fernie (Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology, Golm, Germany), Bjoern Usadel (Aachen University, Aachen, Germany), and Dani Zamir (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel) Producers are under pressure to produce more, cheaper food with reduced inputs and impact on the environment. Consumers need and want healthier, better tasting foods than those produced by today's typical production systems focused on quantity rather than quality. This project focuses on tomato, the most economically important fruit/vegetable crop worldwide. The overall goal of this project is to elucidate the genetic mechanisms controlling plant responses to environmental stresses such as drought and to understand how the environment influences the endogenous chemistry of flavor and nutritional qualities in tomato. This research will deliver mechanistic knowledge as well as tangible tools for agronomic and quality improvement of tomato and other crops. Specifically, naturally occurring versions of genes permitting more robust responses to abiotic stress and positively impacting flavor and nutritional quality will be identified and disseminated to public and private breeders so as to inform their selection processes. The effectiveness of these resources and the significance of the knowledge acquired will ensure that the project contributes directly to food security and sustainable fruit cultivation through use of currently untapped genetic information residing in underutilized wild tomato varieties. With regard to outreach and training, the project will provide unique cross-training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students as well as postdoctoral scientists on both sides of the Atlantic. In addition, the project will provide summer research internships in genomics and bioinformatics for undergraduate students from Fort Valley State, California State University, Fresno and California State University, Sacramento, all minority serving institutions. The twin objectives of this project are to determine the importance of transcriptional regulation of the metabolic pathways defining quality traits in tomato and to identify such transcriptional regulators at the molecular level. The selected quality traits include those determining antioxidant capacity that impacts shelf life and nutritional value as well as those determining fruit flavor. Loci contributing to abiotic stress tolerance will also be identified with the goal of developing more nutritious and sustainable crops. Natural variation available in introgression lines (ILs) resulting from wild species crosses to tomato will be used to assess the importance of transcriptional regulation, identify regulatory genes and assess epigenetic variation. To accomplish these ends, resources that include a genome reference sequence for S. lycopersicoides and metabolite, DNA methylation and transcriptome profiles of IL fruit will be developed and made freely available. Deliverables include regulatory gene identification and new tools for metabolic engineering of fruit quality. This collaborative US-EU project will allow development of tools and resources on a scale unavailable at a national level. All data produced will be freely and continuously shared within the consortium. Specifically, sequence based datasets will be accessible through a consortium database as well as through publicly available data repositories including GenBank, European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), and the SOL Genomics Network (SGN).