Molecular Host-Nematode Interactions and Tuber Development

Potato, Solanum tuberosum, the most important non-grain food crop and essential crop globally, has been widely cultivated around the world for centuries. The significance of this plant is increasing due to high nutritional value of the tubers combined with the simplicity of its propagation. As a plant organ, tuber of potato, is mainly edible part of it and popular as nutrient for almost all nations. Tuberization in potato is a very complex biological occurrence affected by numerous ecological signals, genetics, plant nutrition and several different hormones. Many pests including nematodes limit potato tuber development that plant hormones play roles in nematode feeding cell formation. Parasitic nematodes, important pests which cause damage to plants, tubers, suck up nutrients from plants and weaken plant development and yield losses. Many genes involve in tuber development and plant response nematodes. The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate the new advances in the field of molecular host-nematode interactions and tuber development

Fruit softening: revisiting the role of pectin

Fruit softening is a major determinant of shelf life and commercial value. Here, we highlight recent work that revisits the role of pectin in fruit softening and primary cell wall structure. These studies demonstrate the importance of pectin and the link between its degradation and softening in fleshy fruits. Fruit softening, which is a major determinant of shelf life and commercial value, is the consequence of multiple cellular processes, including extensive remodeling of cell wall structure. Recently, it has been shown that pectate lyase (PL), an enzyme that degrades de-esterified pectin in the primary wall, is a major contributing factor to tomato fruit softening. Studies of pectin structure, distribution, and dynamics have indicated that pectins are more tightly integrated with cellulose microfibrils than previously thought and have novel structural features, including branches of the main polymer backbone. Moreover, recent studies of the significance of pectinases, such as PL and polygalacturonase, are consistent with a causal relationship between pectin degradation and a major effect on fruit softening

Genetic Modification of Plant Hormones Induced by Parasitic Nematodes, Virus, Viroid, Bacteria, and Phytoplasma in Plant Growing

Plant hormones, such as auxin, play crucial roles in many plant developmental processes, which is crosstalk with gibberellin and strigolactone. The roles of hormones may vary in the biosynthesis of metabolisms. During the pathogen attack, including plant-parasitic nematodes, viroid, phytoplasma, virus, and bacteria, plant hormones are involved in several plant processes. Ethylene (ET), salicylate (SA), jasmonate (JA), and abscisic acid (ABA) primarily regulate synergistically or antagonistically against pathogens. Those pathogens—nematodes, bacteria, viroid, phytoplasma, and viruses regulate several plant hormones for successful parasitism, influencing the phytohormone structure and modifying plant development. Several genes are related to plant hormones that are involved in pathogens parasitism. In this chapter, how pathogens affect plant hormones in plants growing are discussed

Pests, Diseases, Nematodes, and Weeds Management on Strawberries

Strawberry is an important crop for many features, including being rich in vitamins and minerals. In addition to fresh consumption, it has been appealing to a wide range of consumers in recent years. Its cultivation is in flat areas, slopes, and areas where other crops are limited. Many pests and diseases that are the main biotic stress factors cause significant crop losses in strawberry cultivation. The aim of this chapter is to reveal biotic stress factors and their management. Several plant-parasitic nematodes, fungal diseases, weeds, pests, virus diseases, and bacterial diseases are the main biotic stress factors in plant growing and fruit ripening. The preparation of this book chapter is based on previously published sources and researches and manuscripts. In this section, it is aimed to provide readers with new perspectives in terms of collecting data on nematodes, diseases, pests, weeds, and fruit ripening of strawberry plants. The effect and mechanism of those biotic stress factors on strawberry growing are discussed and revealed in this chapter

Genetic improvement of tomato by targeted control of fruit softening

Controlling the rate of softening to extend shelf life was a key target for researchers engineering genetically modified (GM) tomatoes in the 1990s, but only modest improvements were achieved. Hybrids grown nowadays contain 'non-ripening mutations' that slow ripening and improve shelf life, but adversely affect flavor and color. We report substantial, targeted control of tomato softening, without affecting other aspects of ripening, by silencing a gene encoding a pectate lyase

Evaluation Performance of Ultrasonic Testing on Fruit Quality Determination

There are several destructive and nondestructive methods for quality evaluation of agricultural products. Most of the employed traditional techniques are time-consuming and involve considerable degree of manual works. Destructive methods provide reasonable success rate of quality determination of fruits; however, they practically have many concerns about effectiveness, time, and cost. Therefore, developing portable, fast, and cost-effective techniques without harming fruits are desired for fruit quality evaluation. This work aims to develop a complete nondestructive quality evaluation system with (a) ultrasonic testing and (b) volume estimation by automatic machine vision techniques. The ultrasonic system consisted of a programmable bipolar remote pulser unit, a couple of piezoelectric probes for ultrasonic signal acquisitions as a transmitter and a receiver, an oscilloscope, and a computer. Visual appearance (size/volume) was determined using a machine vision system based on image processing techniques. Five different images of a fruit from different angles were captured by high-resolution digital cameras. Volume of the fruit was computed after horizontal and vertical distance of the fruit's images captured. The calculated volume values by the computer vision system are validated with the theoretical values. Although nondestructive ultrasonic estimation and volume estimation by image processing methods are cheap, fast, and practical, the results obtained in our experiments concluded that these methods are not as reliable as claimed in the literature

Genome-Wide Identification of the Aconitase Gene Family in Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) and CRISPR-Based Functional Characterization of SlACO2 on Male-Sterility

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is one of the most cultivated vegetables in the world due to its consumption in a large variety of raw, cooked, or processed foods. Tomato breeding and productivity highly depend on the use of hybrid seeds and their higher yield, environmental adaption, and disease tolerance. However, the emasculation procedure during hybridization raises tomato seed production costs and labor expenses. Using male sterility is an effective way to reduce the cost of hybrid seeds and ensure cultivar purity. Recent developments in CRISPR genome editing technology enabled tomato breeders to investigate the male sterility genes and to develop male-sterile tomato lines. In the current study, the tomato Acotinase (SlACO) gene family was investigated via in silico tools and functionally characterized with CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene disruption. Genome-wide blast and HMM search represented two SlACO genes located on different tomato chromosomes. Both genes were estimated to have a segmental duplication in the tomato genome due to their identical motif and domain structure. One of these genes, SlACO2, showed a high expression profile in all generative cells of tomato. Therefore, the SlACO2 gene was targeted with two different gRNA/Cas9 constructs to identify their functional role in tomatoes. The gene was mutated in a total of six genome-edited tomato lines, two of which were homozygous. Surprisingly, pollen viability was found to be extremely low in mutant plants compared to their wild-type (WT) counterparts. Likewise, the number of seeds per fruit also sharply decreased more than fivefold in mutant lines (10–12 seeds) compared to that in WT (67 seeds). The pollen shape, anther structures, and flower colors/shapes were not significantly varied between the mutant and WT tomatoes. The mutated lines were also subjected to salt and mannitol-mediated drought stress to test the effect of SlACO2 on abiotic stress tolerance. The results of the study indicated that mutant tomatoes have higher tolerance with significantly lower MDA content under stress conditions. This is the first CRISPR-mediated characterization of ACO genes on pollen viability, seed formation, and abiotic stress tolerance in tomatoes

Genome-wide identification of the VOZ transcription factors in tomato (<i>Solanum lycopersicum</i>): their functions during fruit ripening and their responses to salinity stress

As a plant-specific transcription factor, vascular plant One-Zinc-finger (VOZ) is involved in the regulation of many biological processes. VOZ genes in tomato have not been analysed comprehensively so far. In this study, two SIVOZs were identified on a genome-wide scale in tomato and analysed using various bioinformatics methods. According to Ka/Ks ratio, SlVOZ proteins are being changed by evolutionary processes to adapt to changing growth and stress conditions. Protein structure and phylogenetic analyses also indicated that transcriptional regulations of SlVOZs were controlled in a specific manner related to developmental stages and abiotic stress conditions. Digital expression results, in particular, showed that SlVOZs are not only active during different growth status of tomato but are also involved in abiotic stress response mechanism. Nonetheless, SlVOZ1 is expressed higher in both developmental stages and under salt stress conditions, confirmed by RT-qPCR. The co-expression maps constructed using RNA-seq data showed that SlVOZ2 was associated with the genes involved in hormonal regulation, formation of fruit shape, secondary wall biosynthesis and in plant development. Overall, it can be concluded that SlVOZs are not only important for plant growth and development but may also be part of the salt stress response mechanism.</p