Br(e)aking the tomato fruit size-sweetness trade-off.

The study by Zhang et al. demonstrated that two kinases (SlCDPK27 and SlCDPK26) regulate the sugar content in tomato fruits with little impact on morphology. They act as sugar breaks by phosphorylating a sucrose synthase, promoting its degradation and unveiling the mechanism by which sugar content can be increased without yield penalty.

CRISPR/Cas9 editing of two adenine phosphoribosyl transferase coding genes reveals the functional specialization of adenine salvage proteins in common bean.

Adenine metabolism is important for common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) productivity since this legume uses ureides derived from the oxidation of purine nucleotides as its primary nitrogen storage molecules. Purine nucleotides are produced from de novo synthesis or through salvage pathways.

Transcriptomic and metabolomic analysis reveals that symbiotic nitrogen fixation enhances drought resistance in common bean.

Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), one of the most important legume crops, uses atmospheric nitrogen through symbiosis with soil rhizobia, reducing the need for nitrogen fertilization. However, this legume is particularly sensitive to drought conditions, prevalent in arid regions where this crop is cultured.

FaMYB123 interacts with FabHLH3 to regulate the late steps of anthocyanin and flavonol biosynthesis during ripening.

In this work, we identified and functionally characterized the strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa) R2R3 MYB transcription factor FaMYB123. As in most genes associated with organoleptic properties of ripe fruit, FaMYB123 expression is ripening-related, receptacle-specific, and antagonistically regulated by ABA and auxin. Knockdown of FaMYB123 expression by RNAi in ripe strawberry fruit receptacles downregulated the expression of enzymes involved in the late steps of anthocyanin/flavonoid biosynthesis.

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated protein and hairy roots: a perfect match for gene functional analysis and crop improvement.

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated protein (CRISPR/Cas) gene editing has become a powerful tool in genome manipulation for crop improvement. Advances in omics technologies, including genomics, transcriptomics, and metabolomics, allow the identification of causal genes that can be used to improve crops. However, the functional validation of these genetic components remains a challenge due to the lack of efficient protocols for crop engineering.

Going broad and deep: sequencing-driven insights into plant physiology, evolution, and crop domestication.

Deep sequencing is a term that has become embedded in the plant genomic literature in recent years and with good reason. A torrent of (largely) high-quality genomic and transcriptomic data has been collected and most of this has been publicly released. Indeed, almost 1000 plant genomes have been reported (www.

Strawberry fruit FanCXE1 carboxylesterase is involved in the catabolism of volatile esters during the ripening process.

Volatile compounds produced during ripening of strawberry are key determinants of fruit quality and consumer preference. Strawberry volatiles are largely esters which are synthesized by alcohol acyltransferases (AATs) and degraded by carboxylesterases (CXEs). Although CXE activity can have a marked influence on volatile contents in ripe strawberry fruits, CXE function and regulation in them are poorly known.

Comparative Molecular and Metabolic Profiling of Two Contrasting Wheat Cultivars under Drought Stress.

Drought is one of the most important threats to plants and agriculture; therefore, understanding of the mechanisms of drought tolerance is crucial for breeding of new tolerant varieties. Here, we assessed the effects of a long-term water deficit stress simulated on a precision phenotyping system on some morphological criteria and metabolite traits, as well as the expression of drought associated transcriptional factors of two contrasting drought-responsive African wheat cultivars, Condor and Wadielniel. The current study showed that under drought stress Wadielniel exhibits significant higher tillering and height compared to Condor.

The knowns and unknowns of intracellular partitioning of carbon and nitrogen, with focus on the organic acid-mediated interplay between mitochondrion and chloroplast.

The presence of specialized cellular compartments in higher plants express an extraordinary degree of intracellular organization, which provides efficient mechanisms to avoid misbalancing of the metabolism. This offers the flexibility by which plants can quickly acclimate to fluctuating environmental conditions. For that, a fine temporal and spatial regulation of metabolic pathways is required and involves several players e.

An atypical HLH transcriptional regulator plays a novel and important role in strawberry ripened receptacle.

Background: In soft fruits, the differential expression of many genes during development and ripening is responsible for changing their organoleptic properties. In strawberry fruit, although some genes involved in the metabolic regulation of the ripening process have been functionally characterized, some of the most studied genes correspond to transcription factors. High throughput transcriptomics analyses performed in strawberry red receptacle (Fragaria x ananassa) allowed us to identify a ripening-related gene that codes an atypical HLH (FaPRE1) with high sequence homology with the PACLOBUTRAZOL RESISTANCE (PRE) genes.