Integrating genetics and high throughput genomics to identify genes underlying tomato QTL for metabolites that influence fruit quality (TOMQML)

水果是人类饮食中非常重要的一部分。水果和蔬菜摄入量低被认为是心脏病和某些癌症风险增加的主要因素。鼓励人们在饮食中摄入更多水果并不一定是直截了当的，而是取决于成本和产品质量等因素。与成熟有关的水果品质的一些最重要的变化涉及影响味道的糖和酸等初级代谢物的积累。此外，次生代谢物（如类胡萝卜素和苯丙素）水平的改变也会对营养质量产生重大影响。挑战在于了解这些个体的成熟变化是如何被控制/调节的，并制定商业上可行的策略来培育新的和更好的水果产品。该项目专注于番茄，因为它是人类饮食中消费最广泛的肉质水果，全球价值超过100亿美元。它已成为研究肉质果实发育和成熟的模式，并且具有丰富的遗传和基因组资源。我们将利用一系列具有良好特征的公开可用的番茄品系和新的番茄遗传资源，结合一系列遗传和分子方法来确定控制番茄味道的基因和增强健康的植物化学物质的积累。与这些方法相一致，我们将确定成熟的主要调节因子及其相关代谢物变化之间的联系。该项目将对水果成熟的分子基础知识做出重要贡献。该联盟由来自欧洲和美国的大学和研究机构以及全球蔬菜种子供应商的国际知名团体组成，共同确保了创新卓越的框架。

Fruits are an immensely important part of the human diet. Low fruit and vegetable intake is recognised as a major factor for increased risk of heart disease and certain cancers. Encouraging people to consume more fruit in their diet is not necessarily straight forward and depends on factors including cost and product quality. Some of the most important changes in fruit quality related to ripening involve the accumulation of primary metabolites such as sugars and acids which influence taste. Also alterations in the levels of secondary metabolites such as carotenoids and phenylpropanoids can have a significant impact on nutritional quality. The challenge is to understand how these individual ripening changes are controlled /modulated and develop commercially viable strategies for breeding novel and better fruit products. This project focuses on tomato as it is the most widely consumed fleshy fruit in the human diet, with a global value in excess of $10 bn. It has become the model for studying the development and ripening of fleshy fruits and a wealth of genetic and genomic resources are available. We will use a range of well characterised publicly available tomato lines and novel tomato genetic resources combined with a range of genetic and molecular approaches to identify the genes controlling tomato taste and the accumulation of health enhancing phytochemicals. In concert with these approaches, we will identify the links between major regulators of ripening and their associated metabolite changes. The project will make an important contribution to fundamental knowledge about the molecular basis of fruit ripening. The consortium consists of internationally recognized groups from universities and research institutes in Europe and the USA as well as a global supplier of vegetable seeds, collectively ensuring a framework for innovative excellence.