Biotechnology Advances
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biotechadv
a r t i c l e
i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Imported from the Andean region to Europe in the 16th century, today tomato is widespread throughout the
world and represents the most economically important vegetable crop worldwide. Tomato is not only traded
in the fresh market but is also used in the processing industry in soups, as paste, concentrate, juice, and ketchup.
It is an incredible source of important nutrients such as lycopene, -carotene and vitamin C, which all have
positive impacts on human health. Its production and consumption is increasing with population growth. In
this review, we report how tomato was already domesticated by the ancient Incan and Aztec civilizations, and
how it came to Europe, where its breeding history started. The development of genetic, molecular biology and
plant biotechnology have opened the doors towards the modern genetic engineering of tomato. The different
goals of tomato genetic engineering are presented, as well as examples of successfully engineered tomatoes in
terms of resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, and fruit quality. The development of GM tomato for
biopharming is also described.
2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Contents
1.
Introduction to tomato . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.1.
Economic importance of tomato and its botanical description .
1.2.
Habitat and diversity of tomato . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.3.
History of domestication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.4.
The tomato today: a model organism for scientists . . . . . .
2.
Challenges of tomato breeding and genetic bases of important traits . .
2.1.
Tomato yields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.
Resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3.
Size and shape of fruit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.4.
Ripening and color establishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.5.
Nutritional value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.6.
Limits of classical breeding: the new area of genetic engineering
3.
Genetic engineering of tomato . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1.
Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of tomato . . . . . .
3.2.
Selection of transgenic plants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.3.
Temporal and/or organ-specic expression: choice of promoter
4.
Transgenic tomatoes with enhanced agronomic traits . . . . . . . .
4.1.
Resistance to biotic stresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.2.
Resistance to abiotic stresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.
Fruit quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.4.
Biopharming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
0734-9750/$ see front matter 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biotechadv.2013.11.003
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1. Introduction to tomato
1.1. Economic importance of tomato and its botanical description
Today, tomato is not only sold fresh but also processed as paste,
soup, juice, sauce, powder, concentrate or whole. Tomato is one of the
most consumed vegetables in the world, after potatoes and before onions (FAOSTAT, http://faostat3.fao.org/home/index.html), and probably
the most preferred garden crop. With worldwide production reaching
almost 160 million tons in 2011, tomato is the seventh most important
crop species after maize, rice, wheat, potatoes, soybeans and cassava.
During the last 20 years, tomato production, as well as the area dedicated to its culture, has doubled (Fig. 1A). Surprisingly, whereas 20 years
ago, Europe and the Americas represented the most important producers, today Asia dominates the tomato market with China ranking
rst, followed in decreasing order by India, USA, Turkey, Egypt, Iran,
Italy, Brazil, Spain and Uzbekistan (Fig. 1BC). Interestingly the countries harboring the highest yield are from northern Europe, where the
climatic conditions are not favorable to the culture of tomato and
where the area dedicated to tomato culture is very small (Table 1). It
is noteworthy that these countries produce most of their tomatoes
171
Fig. 1. Metrics of tomato production in the world. 1A Tomato production and the area dedicated to tomato culture worldwide for the period 19902011 The frame depicts the increase in
tomato consumption for the same period. 1B Weight (in %) of the different continents in tomato production, comparison between 1990 and 2010. 1C Production of the nine leading
producers (source: FAO Statistics; http://faostat3.fao.org/home/index.html).
172
Table 1
Tomato yield in different countries and comparison with production rank and harvested area.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
19
24
35
40
45
46
48
55
57
92
Country
Yield (Hg/Ha)
Rank of production
Netherlands
Belgium
Norway
United Kingdom
Ireland
Iceland
Denmark
Finland
Sweden
Austria
United States of America
Spain
Brazil
Italy
China
Uzbekistan
Turkey
Egypt
Iran
India
4,788,484
4,608,333
4,237,742
4,157,407
4,131,563
4,012,500
3,550,000
3,523,070
2,821,458
2,723,730
848,833
765,630
617,947
572,919
492,714
445,690
408,162
381,521
371,025
194,520
25
55
117
75
116
143
113
93
115
87
3
9
8
7
1
10
4
5
6
2
1,702
474
31
216
32
4
40
114
48
185
148,730
49,913
71,473
103,858
985,903
58,000
269,584
212,446
183,931
865,000
dinner in, with, or after the soup, sh, or meats which constitute the
principal part of the repast, and not, like fruits generally, as dessert.
(http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/149/304/case.html).
The tomato belongs to the Solanaceae family, containing more than
3000 species including many plants of economic importance including
potatoes, eggplants, petunias, tobacco, peppers (Capsicum) and Physalis.
Solanum is the largest genus in the Solanaceae family, encompassing
1250 to 1700 species. Species of the Solanum genus are present on all
temperate and tropical continents and are remarkable for their morphological and ecological diversity. Solanum is probably the most economically important genus, containing crop species and many other species
producing poisonous or medicinal compounds (Weese and Bohs,
2007). Since its introduction in Europe in the 16th century, it was assumed that the tomato was closely related to the genus Solanum and
was identied as Solanum pomiferum. In 1753, Linnaeus classied for
the rst time tomatoes in the genus Solanum under the specic name
of S. lycopersicum. Nevertheless, the genus and designation of tomato
were for a long time a subject of debate, as reported by several authors
(Foolad, 2007; Peralta and Spooner, 2007). The use of molecular data
allowed revision of the phylogenetic classication of the Solanaceae
and the genus Lycopersicon was re-introduced in the Solanum genus
into the section Lycopersicon. It is interesting to note that 200 years of
debate were necessary to conrm the description of Linnaeus. The
ingroup organization of tomato has also evolved since the rst
Table 2
Food supply quantity (kg/capita/year) in the 15 countries consuming the most tomatoes.
The countries with the highest production are highlighted in pale gray.
Country
Rank of production
Libya
Egypt
Greece
Tunisia
Turkey
Armenia
Lebanon
Uzbekistan
Iran
Italy
Spain
Cuba
United Arab Emirates
Portugal
Turkmenistan
150.3
115.9
105.3
94.9
90.5
87.3
75.4
74.4
71.6
60.5
58.9
58.7
57.8
57.7
50.2
54
5
18
101
13
50
45
106
6
7
133
33
3
16
68
description in 1940 done by Mller, who identied six tomato species separated into two sections: subgenus eulycopersicon, including
Lycopersicon esculentum and L. pimpinellifolium; and the subgenus
eriopersicon, regrouping L. peruvianum, L. cheesmaniae, L. hirsutum
and L. glandulosum. Rick (1960, 1979) proposed a tomato classication relying on the ability of the wild species to cross with the cultivated tomato. He recognized nine wild tomato species divided into
two main groups according their crossability: the Esculentum and
Peruvianum complexes. All the species of the Esculentum complex
(L. esculentum, L. pimpinellifolium, L. cheesmaniae, L. pennellii, L. hirsutum,
L. chmielewskii and L. parviorum) can be hybridized with the cultivated
tomato and represent potential sources of resistance to biotic and
abiotic stresses as well as other desirable characters; the species
from the Peruvianum complex (L. chilense and L. peruvianum) are extremely diverse and represent real potential for crop improvement.
The use of these latter species was strongly limited due to their
poor hybridization capacity with the cultivated tomato and the necessity to develop special methods such as embryo rescue (Foolad,
2007). The actual description of the tomato is more complex than
was thought initially and Peralta and Spooner (2001) reported the
nal organization of the Solanum sec. Lycopersicon. Their phylogenetic study, based on the sequence of the granule-bound starch synthase (GBSSI) gene, allowed them to ascertain the outgroup
organization within the Solanum subgenus Potatoe. This study supported Solanum juglandifolium and Solanum ochranthum as the closest
outgroup of tomato (Fig. 2) and divided nally the tomato into three
groups: sect. Lycopersicon subsect. Lycopersicon, ser. Lycopersicon, ser.
Eriopersicon and ser. Neolycopersicon. The nal classication of tomato
recognizes the cultivated tomato (S. lycopersicum) and its twelve wild relatives, the two species S. galapense and S. cheesmaniae being endemic to
the Galapagos Islands. The species S. peruvianum was divided into northern and southern species, and a more precise analysis identied four species: S. arcanum, S. huaylasense, S. peruvianum and S. corneliomulleri
(Peralta et al., 2005, 2008). The different wild tomato species, according
to their relationships into the Solanum genus, are summarized in
Table 3.
1.2. Habitat and diversity of tomato
Wild tomato species are native to western South America along the
coast and high Andes from central Ecuador, through Peru, to northern
Chile, and in the Galapagos Islands. Consequently tomato wild species
grow in a variety of habitats ranging from sea level on the Pacic coast
up to 3300 m asl. in the Andean Highlands, and from arid to rainy
173
Fig. 2. General phylogenetic tree based on the analysis of GBSSI gene sequences from 65 accessions of the 9 tomato species and 14 outgroup taxa. Numbers indicate bootstrap values, and
decay values are indicated between parentheses.
Extracted from Peralta and Spooner (2005).
climates (Table 3). Tomato wild species are often restricted to narrow
and isolated valleys where they adapted to particular climatic and soil
types. It is probable that the Andean geography, the diverse ecological
habitats and the different climates together contributed to wild tomato
diversity. This hypothesis is supported by a very recent study based on
the two closely related wild tomato species S. lycopersicum and S.
pimpinellifolium (Nakazato and Housworth, 2011). This diversity is
expressed through morphological, physiological and sexual characteristics (Peralta and Spooner, 2005; Spooner et al., 2005).
The mating system plays a key role in species diversication and
outcrossing constitutes an important and widespread strategy for maintaining genetic variability. Genetically controlled self-incompatibility
is a very common mechanism in the plant kingdom. In tomato, the
self-incompatibility is gametophytic and varies from allogamous selfincompatible, to facultative allogamous, to autogamous and selfcompatible (Table 3). Self-incompatibility is strongly correlated
with the degree of outcrossing, allelic diversity, oral display and degree of stigma exsertion in wild tomatoes (Peralta et al., 2008). Indeed,
an exserted stigma above the anthers will promote outcrossing by buzz
pollination, whereas a recessed stigma below the anthers will promote
self-fertilization (Chen and Tanksley, 2004). By investigating the bases
of self-compatibility/-incompatibility and ower characteristics, Rick
(1982) came to the conclusion that the mating system evolved from
self-incompatible, as the ancestral condition, to self-compatible. Changes from self-incompatibility to self-compatibility are events which are
expected to happen infrequently and independently. This is the case
of S. habrochaites and S. pennellii, for which both self-compatible and
self-incompatible populations have been identied (Rick, 1982). The
self-incompatible populations have a higher degree of diversity, larger
ower parts, and exserted stigma, as opposed to self-compatible populations characterized by reduced genetic diversity, smaller ower parts
and little or no stigma exsertion. Thus, in tomato, ower stigma exsertion and gametophytic incompatibility contribute to greater
outcrossing and genetic diversity.
1.3. History of domestication
Despite the centuries since tomato was introduced to Europe, the
origin of its domestication is still unclear, and two hypotheses are still
being contended: the Peruvian and Mexican hypotheses. How can the
place of domestication of a crop be determined? In an attempt to
solve this question, DeCandolle (1886) used an approach combining
botany, archeology and paleontology, history and philology. Botany
consists of observing the natural occurrence of the crop and/or its putative relative wild species; archeology and paleontology focus on studying fossils from caves, burial sites or other preserved deposits; history
looks for evidence of the crop in the early reports of people; and nally
philology or linguistic evidence is based on the comparison of native
names to prior languages.
DeCandolle expressed for the rst time the Peruvian origin of tomato
domestication. His conclusions were based on the fact that: i) no unambiguous natural records of tomato were identied out of the Americas
after its European discovery, ii) mala peruviana and pomi del Peru
were used to refer to the tomato, suggesting its initial domestication
and transport from Peru to Europe, iii) the cultivated tomato was
thought to originate from the wild cherry tomato which was known
to be localized from coastal Peru through Mexico to the southwestern
USA (California), iv) the distribution of the cultivated tomato and its
progenitors arose from Peru by garden escapes, v) the domestication occurred before the discovery of America but not very long before that
(reviewed in Peralta and Spooner, 2007). The Mexican origin of domestication was proposed by Jenkins in 1948. It was mainly justied by the
fact that no evidence of pre-Colombian tomato cultivation in South
America was available, compared to good evidence in Mexico. Following
the philology, Jenkins also argued that the name tomato comes from
the Mexican Nahua word tomatl which refers to plants bearing
globous and juicy fruit (Bauchet and Causse, 2012). However to date,
the origin of the domestication of tomato is unsolved, even though it
has been reported that tomatoes from Europe and North America
share similar isozymes and molecular markers with those from Mexico
and Central America, suggesting that the tomato was introduced to
Europe and North America from these regions (Bauchet and Causse,
2012; Peralta and Spooner, 2007). None of the hypotheses on the origin
of tomato domestication is more conclusive than the other. It might be
that domestication occurred independently in both regions. The most
likely ancestor of cultivated tomatoes is the wild cherry tomato, usually
identied as S. lycopersicum var. cerasiforme because of its wide representation in Central America. Nevertheless the genetic investigations made
by Nesbitt and Tanksley in 2002 demonstrated that the plants known as
cerasiforme are a mixture of wild and cultivated tomatoes, rather
than the direct ancestor of the cultivated tomato. A very recent
study based on the analysis of single nucleotide polymorphisms
not only conrms that S. lycopersicum var. cerasiforme is not the ancestor of the cultivated tomato but also reinforces the model that a
pre-domestication of the tomato occurred in the Andean region
(Peruvian hypothesis), with the domestication being completed in
174
Table 3
Comparison of wild tomato species (Solanum L. section Lycopersicon subsection Lycopersicon) adapted from Peralta et al. (2005) and Spooner et al. (2005). SC: self-compatible, SI: self-incompatible, At: autogamous, Al: allogamous.
Lycopersicon equivalent
Fruit color
Reproductive system
S. cheesmaniae
L. cheesmaniae
Yellow, orange
SC, exclusively At
S. galapagense
Yellow, orange
SC, exclusively At
S. lycopersicum
L. esculentum
Red
SC, facultative Al
S. pimpinellifolium
L. pimpinellifolium
Red
S. chilense
L. chilense
SC, Al
S. chmielewskii
S. habrochaites
L. chmielewskii
L. hirsutum
Green
Green
SC, facultative Al
SI
S. pennellii
L. pennellii
Green
SI
S. neorickii
L. parviorum
Pale green
SC, At
Green
S. peruvianum
north
S. peruvianum
south
S. arcanum
S. huaylasense
L. peruvianum
var. hirsutum
L. peruvianum
S. peruvianum
L. peruvianum
S. corneliomuelleri
L. peruvianum
var. glandulosum
Green
Green
Green
175
Table 4
Non exhaustive list of important pests and diseases of tomato with their causal agents.
Bacterial diseases
Bacterial canker
Bacterial speck
Bacterial spot
Bacterial stem rot and
fruit rot
Syringae leaf spot
Fungal diseases
Alternaria stem canker
Black mold rot
Black shoulder
Early blight
Fusarium crown and
root rot
Fusarium wilt
Gray mold
Late blight
Leaf mold
Powdery mildew
Pythium damping-off
and fruit rot
Verticillium wilt
White mold
Nematodes, parasitic
Root-knot
Sting
Stubby-root
Meloidogyne spp.
Belonolaimus longicaudatus
Paratrichodorus spp., Trichodorus spp.
drastic physiological and morphological changes, but this articial selection reduced the genetic diversity of cultivated tomato.
1.4. The tomato today: a model organism for scientists
The popularity of the tomato for scientists has increased over the
years, until it has become a model organism for research programs,
both for applied and theoretical purposes. This is probably due to
1) the possibility of growing tomato in different conditions, allowing
an understanding of the adaptability of tomato to different abiotic
stresses (cold, drought, etc.), 2) its relative short life cycle, 3) its photoperiod insensitivity, i.e. the ability to ower, and subsequently produce
seeds in any condition of day length, 4) its high self-fertility and homozygosity, characteristics leading to the breeding of heirlooms by the end of
19th century, 5) the ease of controlled pollination and hybridization,
6) the simplicity of its genetics with a relatively small genome (estimated
to be approximately 900 Mb for the inbred tomato cultivar Heinz 1706,
which was used for the recent sequencing of the tomato genome; The
Tomato Genome Consortium, 2012) and lack of gene duplication, and
7) its ability to be propagated asexually by grafting, or to regenerate
whole plants from different parts of the plant.
176
177
Fig. 3. Schematic representation of development of the ower into a fruit after pollination/fertilization (A) and of the physiological processes occurring during fruit development (B, from
Tanksley, 2004).
protein (Liu et al., 2002). Two other loci are important in the control of
fruit shape: sun and fs8.1. The locus fs8.1 is responsible for the square
tomato which is the result of adaptation of the tomato for mechanical
harvest (Grandillo et al., 1996). Like ovate, fs8.1 is expressed during
ovary development. As with the ovate locus, the sun mutation induces
an increase in the length of fruit; but in the case of the sun mutant, the
elongation occurs in both longitudinal directions, conferring a bilateral
symmetry (Van der Knaap and Tanksley, 2001). Moreover, whereas
ovate is expressed early during ower development, sun is expressed
only during the phase of cell division. All together demonstrate that,
although the two mutations confer similar phenotypes, they surely
have different genetic base (Tanksley, 2004).
2.4. Ripening and color establishment
Ripening, or fruit maturation, is the physiological process giving rise
to red, fully developed mature fruit. During ripening, important biochemical reactions occur. Some are benecial to the fruit, such as acquisition of color, accumulation of sugars and volatile compounds. Others
are detrimental to long storage, such as loosening of the cell wall,
which leads to loss of fruit rmness and reduction of shelf-life. In
the climacteric fruit of tomato, the onset of ripening is preceded by
the increase of respiration and the biosynthesis of ethylene (Lelievre
et al., 1997). Ethylene results from the methionine metabolism
(Yang, 1985). The S-adenosylmethionine is converted via ACC synthase
(ACS) to 1-amino-cyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC), which is subsequently converted to ethylene via ACC oxidase (ACO). In addition to
178
Fig. 4. Ethylene biosynthetic pathway and ripening regulated processes. 1: adomet synthetase, 2: kinase, 3: aminotransferase, 4: ACC synthase (ACS), 5: ACC oxydase (ACO).
the NAC domain family (Martel et al., 2011; Vrebalov et al., 2002). If
these mutations are homozygous, the process of ripening is inhibited,
the fruits remain yellow or light orange and can be stored for months
at room temperature. When the mutations are heterozygous, the fruit
ripens slowly and has an extended shelf-life. Interestingly, the rin mutation in its form rin/Rin constitutes the basis for most of the tomato hybrids with slow ripening and long shelf-life (Giovannoni, 2007). In a
recent study, Martel et al. (2011) demonstrated that RIN interacts
Fig. 5. Carotenoids biosynthetic pathway and tomato mutants. Pictures are from the Tomato Genetic Resource Centre. ABA: abscissic acid; AO, adldehyde oxidase; CrtR-b: carotenehydroxylase; Cyc-B: chromoplast specic lycopene synthase; DMAPP: dimethylallyl diphosphate; GPP: genaryl diphosphate; GGPP: geranylgeranyl diphosphate; Ggps: GGPPsynthase; IPP: isopentenyl diphosphate; Lcy-b: lycopene -cyclase; Lcy-e: lycopene -cyclase; MEP: methylerythritolphosphate; Nxs: neoxanthin synthase; Pds: phytoene desaturase;
Psy: phytoene synthase; Vde1: violaxanthin deepoxidase; VNCED: 9-cis-epoxycarotenoid dioxygenase; Zds: -carotene desaturase; Zep1: zeaxanthin epoxidase.
Table 5
Nutritional value of 100 g of red fresh tomato (source: USDA, http://www.usda.gov/wps/
portal/usda/usdahome).
Proximates
Water
Energy
Protein
Total lipid
Fibers
Sugars
g
kcal
g
g
g
g
94.52
18
0.88
0.2
1.2
2.63
Minerals
Calcium
Magnesium
Phosphorus
Potassium
Sodium
Fluoride
mg
mg
mg
mg
mg
g
10
11
24
237
5
2.3
mg
mg
g
g
g
g
g
g
13.7
6.7
42
449
101
2573
123
7.9
Vitamins
Vitamin C
Choline
Vitamin A
-Carotene
-Carotene
Lycopene
Lutein + zeaxanthin
Vitamin K
179
carotenoid isomerase. The Del mutant accumulates high levels of carotene and encodes a lycopene -cyclase, like the mutation B, which
is characterized by the accumulation of -carotene (Lewinsohn et al.,
2005).
2.5. Nutritional value
If one takes into consideration only proteins/lipids/sugars content to
describe the nutritional value, it appears clearly that tomato does not
have a high nutritional value. Nevertheless, tomatoes represent an important source of nutrients which are important for human health
such as antioxidants, represented by the content in lycopene, vitamin
A (-carotene) and ascorbic acid (vitamin C) (Table 5). Thus, tomatoes
represent the main source of lycopene, which has antioxidant properties
and is considered to protect against cancer or cardiovascular diseases
(Rao and Agarwal, 2000). The cross between S. lycopersicum cv. Floradade
and the wild relative S. galapense (L. cheesmanii f. minor C.H. Mull), bearing the Beta (B) gene, gave rise to three lines with enhanced fruit carotene content, and consequently higher nutritional value (Stommel,
2001). Tomatoes are also an important and remarkable source of ascorbic
acid. The primary route of ascorbic acid synthesis is the L-galactose
WheelerSmirnoff pathway in which ascorbic acid is synthesized from
mannose-6-phosphate via GDP-mannose and GDP-L-galactose. More
pathways have been described notably the alternatice pathway with an
L -galactonic acid intermediate, deriving from cell wall polymers
(Di Matteo et al., 2010; Ioannidi et al., 2009; Stevens et al., 2007).
Compared to the modern cultivated tomato, wild tomato varieties
are rich in ascorbic acid and can contain up to 5 times more ascorbic
acid than the cultivated counterpart (Stevens, 1986). Stevens et al.
(2007) investigated the QTLs and candidate genes affecting fruit
ascorbic acid. The recent work of Di Matteo et al. (2010) demonstrated that the accumulation of ascorbic acid is achieved by increasing
pectin degradation and may be triggered by ethylene. Some cultivars
with enhanced nutritional value were thus successfully developed,
but reduction of the yield in these new cultivars hindered their commercial success (Causse et al., 2007).
Soluble and total solids are important traits for processing tomatoes
and contribute to the denition of the concentrated tomato product.
Soluble solids represent sugars and organic acids whose ratio, together
with the composition in volatile aroma, characterizes the avor of the
fruit. The organic acids, alone, determine the pH of the nal product. A
pH above 4.5 will allow the development of microorganisms, spoiling
the nal product. Increased temperatures and extended processing
time are the only ways to get rid of this problem, but they also increase
the costs linked to processing. Insoluble solids, represented by components of the cell wall and proteins, dene the rmness of the fruit but
also the viscosity of the nal products, such as tomato juice, ketchup,
soups and paste. Two other criteria are of high importance for the
breeding of new cultivars for processing tomatoes: growth habit and
ease of harvest. The spontaneous self-pruning (sp) mutation appeared
in 1914, allowing the development of cultivars with bushy growth
habit. In addition, sp induces the concentration of owers and consequently of fruits, and contributes to fruit rmness and resistance to
over-ripening. All these characteristics made cultivars bearing this mutation material of choice for mechanical harvest. The jointless mutations (j and j2) are characterized by no abscission zone in fruit pedicel,
enabling harvest without calyx and pedicel, i.e. the fruit free from any
green parts.
2.6. Limits of classical breeding: the new area of genetic engineering
In order to obtain new cultivars with improved agronomical traits,
three objectives have to be taken into account: environmental conditions, mode of culture and mode of harvest. Efcient breeding relies
on the availability of genetic diversity and the heritability of the traits
of interest. Very often, many traits must be simultaneously improved
180
and introduced into the new cultivar and most of them are controlled by
several genes and/or inuenced by the environment. Finally, and importantly, the organoleptic signature, considered often as a side criterion
for selection, is evaluated by sensorial analyses which cannot be developed on the scale of mass screening (Causse et al., 2007). Traditional
breeding usually starts from a cross between elite lines of adapted cultivars, or between an elite line and either wild species or close outgroup
related species (S. juglandifolium and S. ochranthum). It must be noted
that the production of a new cultivar from a cross between two cultivars
takes 5 to 7 years, and the incorporation of new genes from wild relatives takes about 20 years, the complexity of the breeding program increasing with the complexity between parents (Causse et al., 2007).
The choice of parental lines is thus crucial and demands good knowledge of the available germplasm. In the case of tomato, more than
83,000 accessions are stored in seed banks throughout the world, placing tomato as the number one collected and conserved vegetable species (Bauchet and Causse, 2012). The main collections are: the Tomato
Genetic Resource Center in California (USA TGRC, http://tgrc.
ucdavis.edu/), the USDA collection (USA www.ars.usda.gov), the
World Vegetable Center in Taiwan (www.avrdc.org) and other collections in Europe. In the frame of the European Solanaceae project
(EU-SOL, www.eu-sol.wur.nl), approximately 7000 domesticated
tomato accessions, alongside representative wild species, were enumerated. These collections represent a precious source of information
for subsequent breeding programs. All wild species can be crossed
with the cultivated tomato (S. lycopersicum) with more or less high
efciency if cultivated tomato is used as the female (Bedinger et al.,
2011). When two species are non-crossable, in vitro techniques are required, such as cell fusion and regeneration from tissue or single cells, or
embryo-rescue (Bai and Lindhout, 2007; Rick, 1974); this is particularly
necessary in the case of crosses with S. peruvianum. Table 6 gives a nonexhaustive list of traits which have a potential for breeding and their
germplasm origin. A few examples of the improvement of cultivated tomato by introgression of wild characters can be mentioned here: the
use of L. hirsutum for improving cold tolerance, of L. chilense for drought
tolerance, of L. cheesmanii for soluble solids and salt tolerance (Hobson
and Grierson, 1993), or of L. pennellii for sugar yield (Fridman et al.,
2000; Ikeda et al., 2013) or yield and tness (Semel et al., 2006). Recently, in an attempt to increase the endogenous content of avonoids,
compounds with a positive impact on human health, S. pennellii var.
puberulum was crossed with cultivated tomato (Willits et al., 2005).
The plants accumulated high levels of quercetin in the fruit. Some accessions accumulated lycopene or ascorbic acid at levels twice those of traditional cultivars. Thus carotene content can be signicantly increased
in cultivated tomato by using S. hirsutum in crosses. Analogously, a
strategy based on S. pimpinellifolium, S. cheesmanii and S. chmielewskii
has increased the sugar content (Stevens, 1986). The method of Gas
chromatographymass spectrometry was used to characterize the metabolic prole of leaves and fruits of wild tomato species in comparison
to cultivated tomato. The method allowed identifying more than 90
metabolites constituting the metabolic signature of each species. This
is of importance as it can constitute a way of selecting parental lines
used in crosses (Schauer et al., 2005).
By 2050, the world population is estimated to reach 9.07 billion,
with 62% of people living in Africa, Southern Eastern Asia. These same
regions are where a huge proportion of the population suffers from
hunger (FAO, data collected for the period 20102012). Traditional agriculture and breeding cannot sustain the increasing food demand for
several reasons: 1) decreasing arable land giving way to living space,
2) increasing problem of drought and salt stresses due to environmental
and climate changes, and 3) slow and laborious empirical selection
(Ahmad et al., 2012). The development of molecular biology offers
breeders a new prospect for genetic improvement based on molecular
markers and genetic engineering. Molecular markers used in markerassisted selection (MAS) are not reviewed in this work as they have
been extensively reported in various recent reviews (Bauchet and
Table 6
Non-exhaustive list of agronomic traits of interest available from wild tomato species
(extracted from Foolad, 2007, for more details see the references therein).
Phenotype
Biotic stress
Resistance to bacteria
Resistance to fungi
Resistance to virus
Resistance to insects
Abiotic stress
Cold (low temperature) L. pimpinellifolium, L. hirsutum
Drought
L. pimpinellifolium, L. pennellii
Salt
L. pimpinellifolium, L. pennellii
Fruit characteristics
Antioxidant capacity
Ascorbic acid
Citric acid
Color
Jointless
L. pennellii
L. pennellii
L. pennelli
L. pimpinellifolium, L. peruvianum, L. hirsutum,
L. parviorum, L. chmielewski, L. pennellii
L. cheesmanii, L. hirsutum, L. pennellii, L. parviorum
L. pimpinellifolium, L. parviorum, L. pennellii
L. pennellii
L. parviorum
L. pennellii, L. pimpinellifolium
L. pimpinellifolium
L. pimpinellifolium, L. peruvianum, L. hirsutum,
L. parviorum, L. pennellii
L. pimpinellifolium, L. peruvianum, L. hirsutum,
L. parviorum, L. chmielewskii, L. pennellii
L. pennellii, L. hirsutum
L. pimpinellifolium
L. pimpinellifolium
L. pimpinellifolium, L. peruvianum, L. hirsutum, L. parviorum
L. pennellii, L. pimpinellifolium, L. peruvianum, L. cheesmanii
L. chmielewskii, L. cheesmanii, L. pennelli,
L. pimpinellifolium, L. hirsutum
L. pimpinellifolium, L. peruvianum, L. hirsutum,
L. parviorum, L. pennellii
L. pennellii, L. chmielewskii, L. cheesmanii,
L. pimpinellifolium, L. peruvianum, L. hirsutum
L. chmielewskii, L. pennelli, L. pimpinellifolium,
L. peruvianum, L. hirsutum, L. parviorum
L. cheesmanii
Plant characteristics
Branch number
Male sterility
Growth habit
Height
Self-pruning
L. cheesmanii
L. pimpinellifolium
L. peruvianum, L. pimpinellifolium
L. pennelli, L. pimpinellifolium, L. hirsutum, L. cheesmanii
L. chmielewskii, L. pimpinellifolium
-carotene
Lycopene
Orange
Yellow
Cracking
Diameter
Shape
Firmness
Sugars
Length
Locule number
Maturity
Ripening
Soluble solids
Viscosity
Weight
Yield
Causse, 2012; Causse et al., 2007). Attempts to understand the plant genome, i.e. how the plant functions and how a gene can make a plant, led
in 2003 to the development of the international Solanaceae Genomics
Network (SOL) project. This consortium encompasses several databases resulting from gene sequencing, gene expression proling,
metabolites proling, genome sequencing and annotation. The fullysequenced tomato genome was released in 2012, and its annotation is
still underway (The Tomato Genome Consortium, 2012). All this information allows a better understanding of the plant growth and development; today a specic character can be easily introduced in a cultivar of
interest by means of plant transformation and regeneration in a shorter
time than traditional breeding. Moreover, genetic engineering surmounts the barriers intra-/inter-crossability. Indeed, a gene from a
non-related species can be introduced into the crop of interest which
would not have been possible by classical breeding, due to interspecic
incompatibility.
181
simpler. In order to study the regulation of ower initiation and development in tomato, Yasmeen et al. (2009) initiated the oral dip transformation of tomato. They observed that owers which did not experience
pollination gave a higher percentage of transformation, similar to what
was observed for Arabidopsis. It is supposed that after anthesis the locule
becomes sealed, enabling the proper penetration of the bacteria to the
ovule (Desfeux et al., 2000). Inltration of tissues for transient gene
expression and localization was developed for several species. The
Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression by leaf inltration is today
the favorite tool in many gene functional analyses. While tobacco leaf is
the material of choice, the efciency of the method has been described
not only for other species, such as alfafa, lettuce, tomato, and Arabidopsis
(Wroblewski et al., 2005), but also for rose petals (Scalliet et al., 2006). In
order to shorten the time in functional studies in fruit development,
Agrobacterium-mediated transformation by inltration of tissues was applied to tomato fruit (Orzaez et al., 2006). In practice, the Agrobacterium
cultures were injected into the mature green fruits through the fruit stylar
apex, which resulted in complete fruit inltration. This new method,
called fruit agroinjection, was found to be a powerful tool for fast transgene expression in fruits and to facilitate functional studies in that organ.
A few years later, Hasan et al. (2008) reported fruit agroinjection as a tool
to stably transform tomato. The efciency of transformation was higher
when the fruit was kept on the plant compared to detached fruit, and mature fruits at the early stage of ripening gave more transformants than
immature, green fruits (Yasmeen et al., 2009).
3.2. Selection of transgenic plants
Because during the process of Agrobacterium-mediated transformation not all cells of the explant are efciently transformed, the use of selection is required to avoid long, costly and laborious screening of the
transgenic progeny. Thus a gene encoding an enzyme conferring resistance to antibiotics or herbicides is introduced concurrently with the
gene of interest. The presence of such genes within the environment
or in the food supply might provoke unpredictable damage to the ecosystem and to human health. The possibility of transmission of the
marker gene through pollen is the major environmental concern
(Tuteja et al., 2012). In the last decade, methodologies have been developed to eliminate marker genes from the process of genetic engineering. Several possibilities were considered. The rst one consisted of
avoiding the use of the marker gene in transgenic plants. This was applied in several crops, but the efciency of transformation rarely
reached 5% (Bai et al., 2009; De Vetten et al., 2003; Jia et al., 2006). A second method is co-transformation, which is a simple and highly effective
method. In this case, the gene of interest and the marker gene are present on two different vectors. The rst generation of the progeny will
bear the two genes in its genome. Because they are not introduced in
the genome at the same loci, they will segregate during sexual reproduction. The marker gene will be eliminated from the genome by further selecting transgenic lines bearing only the gene of interest
(Komari et al, 1996). Transposon-based marker excision is a third strategy which has also been used to remove marker genes from the gene of
interest. This strategy is based on the maize Ac/Ds transposable element
(Upadhyaya et al., 2010). Finally, marker gene removal can be achieved
by a strategy based on the recombination which takes place between
two homologous DNA molecules. Three systems were developed
based on recombination to eliminate the marker gene: the Cre/lox site
specic recombination system (Dale and Ow, 1991), the FLP/FRT recombination system from Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Lyznik et al., 1996) and
the R/RS recombination system from Zygosaccharomyces rouxii (Sugita
et al., 2000). Because all these strategies have been described and reported in detail by several reviewers, they are not explained here
(Darbani et al., 2007; Puchta, 2003; Upadhyaya et al., 2010).
In tomato, the rst report of generation of marker-free transgenic
plants came from Goldsbrough et al. (1993). By using the maize Ac/Ds
transposable element, they were able to obtain NPTII- or GUS-free
182
183
Table 7
Non-exhaustive list of successful tomato engineering. Reference can be found in Di Matteo et al. (2011). References in bold are discussed in the text.
Trait
Fruit
quality
Inserted target
Reference
Parthenocarpy
Firmness
Size
Flavor
fw2.2
Thaumatin, gdhA, GES, LIS, LeCCD1, LeACCDC1A,
LeACCDC2
Soluble solids
content
Carotenoid content
Lin5, PME
Flavonoid content
CHI, CHS, CHI, F3H, FLS, MYB12, STS, CHR, FNS-II, Del, Ros1
Crt1, Samdc
aroA, HAL2, HAL1, BADH, AtNHX1, ectoine, GlyI and GlyII,
ACC deaminase, TPS1, APX, Osmotin, CBF1, SAMDC, cAXP
Biotic stresses
identication of genes which are involved in this process, and potential targets of genetic engineering by gene silencing.
One of the most rapid responses is the production of superoxide (O2)
and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), characterizing the oxidative burst
shortly after pathogen recognition. Because H2O2 is highly toxic for
the cell, plants have developed mechanisms of detoxication mediated
by peroxidases. The Ep5c gene, encoding a secreted peroxidase, was
found to accumulate to signicant levels in tomato plants susceptible
to Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato, leading to the hypothesis that it is
required for disease susceptibility toward this pathogen. Whereas the
inhibition of Ep5C protein accumulation by RNA antisense strategy led
to obtaining transgenic plants resistant to P. syringae pv. tomato, the
mechanisms downstream of Ep5C are still unclear (Coego et al., 2005).
The production of quinones which results from the oxidation of phenols
by the action of polyphenol oxidases (PPO) is also part of the processes
leading to pathogens resistance. Indeed, the active quinones have a direct antibiotic and cytotoxic effect on pathogens. Transgenic tomato
plants constitutively overexpressing the potato PPO gene were characterized by increased PPO activity, leading to a higher rate of phenolic
compound oxidation. These plants were found to be more resistant to
P. syringae pv. tomato. Indeed in these transgenic plants, bacterial
growth was strongly inhibited (100-fold reduction of bacterial population in infected leaves compared to the non-transgenic plants) and the
number of lesions was also signicantly reduced (Li and Steffens, 2002).
The mitochondrial alternative oxidases (AOXs) are components of
the alternative respiratory pathway of plants. They can be induced by
wounding, ethylene, ROS or salicylic acid. The LeAOX gene, encoding a
tomato AOX, was isolated and overexpressed by Agrobacteriummediated transformation in tomato. Multiplication of Tomato spotted
wilt virus (TSWV) was signicantly limited in the transgenic tomato
184
185
186
desaturase (Crtl) gene from Erwinia uredovora was introduced into tomato in order to increase -carotene content. Because the production
of phytoene mediated by phytoene synthase is the limiting step of
carotenoid synthesis, no difference in the total amount of carotene
could be measured in transgenic tomato fruits. Instead, the quality of
the carotenoids produced was modied with a three-fold increase of
-carotene content, representing up to 45% of the total carotenoid content (Rmer et al., 2000).
4.4. Biopharming
In the past few years, a new concept, called biopharming, has been
developing. Biopharming consists of using plants to produce therapeutic molecules which will be further puried or introduced directly into
the human or animal diet. Despite the fact that bacterial fermentation,
yeast systems and mammalian cell cultures are still widely used to produce molecules important in treating cancers or different human diseases in huge amounts, the costs of development linked to purication
are very signicant. Up to now, more than 100 therapeutic and diagnostic recombinant proteins and vaccines have been produced in various
plants, including tobacco, cereals, legumes, fruit and vegetable crops.
Plants have several advantages over the classical modes of production
in term of economy, production scale and safety (Ahmad et al., 2012;
Chen et al., 2009).
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease leading to
neuron destruction. The toxic brain protein responsible for AD, betaamyloid (A), has been identied and is accumulated in patients developing AD. One strategy to prevent and cure AD would be the use of
vaccines directed against A. Attempts to produce and purify A as an
antigen in Escherichia coli or yeast systems have been laborious because
of the toxicity of the protein itself. Thus Youm et al. (2008) initiated the
production of A in tomato fruit. They were able to produce the protein
in a satisfactory amount and to use it in an immunization assay on mice.
Thymosin 1, a booster of the immune system, is widely used in treatment against viral infections (hepatitis B and C) and cancers. Until now
it has been derived from animal thymus or produced chemically; nevertheless, the amount of T1 produced is not sufcient faced with increasing demand for the medicine. Using Agrobacterium-mediated
transformation, T1 was specically expressed in the fruit of tomato.
The protein could be easily extracted from the fruit and the yield was
up to 6 g/g fresh weight. Moreover, the activity of the T1 produced
by tomato was higher than that produced by E. coli (Chen et al., 2009). Examples of tomato genetic engineering for the purposes of biopharming
are becoming more and more numerous, and tomato has already been
used for the production of different vaccines (reviewed in Ahmad et al.,
2012).
Beside its use to produce vaccines and therapeutic molecules, the tomato is also used as a bioreactor to produce molecules which are more
exotic. This is the case of miraculin. Miraculin is the active compound
of the miracle fruit, Synsepalum dulcum. It has the property to change
any sour taste into a sweet and pleasant savor (Kurihara and Beidler,
1968). The production and purication of miraculin in E. coli systems
was not sufcient enough and it is very recently that researchers have
used tomatoes as bioreactors for widerproduction of the compound.
The amount of miraculin in transgenic tomato fruit was up to 90 g
per g of fresh weight (Hirai et al., 2010).
5. Conclusion
Since its discovery in the 16th century and its rst steps into domestication and breeding more than 600 years ago, tomato has become one
of, if not the most important vegetable crop worldwide. Interest in tomato is increasing with the population. With current predictions of population increase and climatic changes, it is assumed that traditional
breeding of tomato is not sufcient to satisfy future demand and climatic changes. Development of the plant's molecular biology coupled to its
genome sequencing and the study of wild relative species, have allowed
researchers to go beyond the limits of classical breeding. The culture of
genetically modied (GM) tomatoes encounters problems in most of
the leading producer countries. Indeed since the arrest of GM tomato
culture in the USA in 2002, only China remains a producer of GM tomatoes. This is mainly due to the negative opinion of the population that
GM crops are deleterious or, even worse, dangerous for human health
and the environment; this is the consequence of misinformation. As
scientists, our duty is not only to produce crops with engineered
agronomical traits, but also to educate and inform the people around
us. The use of marker-free transgenic plants i.e. devoid of resistance
of antibiotic or herbicides should provide a good argument in favor
of the use of such plants. Moreover, we also have to take advantage of
knowledge from wild relative species. Indeed introgression of genetic
information from wild or related species into the cultivated tomato
and limitation of the transfer of alien information would limit the risk
of deleterious effects on the environment and on human or animal
health. Finally, while GM tomatoes are promising, their potential has
rarely been validated in eld trials. Such trials, as well as study of impact
on health and the environment, have to be developed and the results
have to be brought to the awareness of society. If we do not invest
part of our time in doing this, why should we continue developing
crops useful to humanity?
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank J. Humplik and P. Galuszka for their
criticism during the preparation of the present manuscript and M.
Sweney for English correction of the text. Finally, the author thanks K.
Janokov for the design of Fig. 3. This work was supported by the OP
RD&I grant ED0007/01/01 Centre of the Region Han for Biotechnological and Agricultural Research from the Ministry of Education Youth and
Sports, Czech Republic and P501/10/0785 from the National Science
Foundation, Czech Republic.
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