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      Expression profiling of ascorbic acid-related genes during tomato fruit development and ripening and in response to stress conditions

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          Abstract

          L-Ascorbate (the reduced form of vitamin C) participates in diverse biological processes including pathogen defence mechanisms, and the modulation of plant growth and morphology, and also acts as an enzyme cofactor and redox status indicator. One of its chief biological functions is as an antioxidant. L-Ascorbate intake has been implicated in the prevention/alleviation of varied human ailments and diseases including cancer. To study the regulation of accumulation of this important nutraceutical in fruit, the expression of 24 tomato ( Solanum lycopersicon) genes involved in the biosynthesis, oxidation, and recycling of L-ascorbate during the development and ripening of fruit have been characterized. Taken together with L-ascorbate abundance data, the results show distinct changes in the expression profiles for these genes, implicating them in nodal regulatory roles during the process of L-ascorbate accumulation in tomato fruit. The expression of these genes was further studied in the context of abiotic and post-harvest stress, including the effects of heat, cold, wounding, oxygen supply, and ethylene. Important aspects of the hypoxic and post-anoxic response in tomato fruit are discussed. The data suggest that L-galactose-1-phosphate phosphatase could play an important role in regulating ascorbic acid accumulation during tomato fruit development and ripening.

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          A MADS-box gene necessary for fruit ripening at the tomato ripening-inhibitor (rin) locus.

          Tomato plants harboring the ripening-inhibitor (rin) mutation yield fruits that fail to ripen. Additionally, rin plants display enlarged sepals and loss of inflorescence determinacy. Positional cloning of the rin locus revealed two tandem MADS-box genes (LeMADS-RIN and LeMADS-MC), whose expression patterns suggested roles in fruit ripening and sepal development, respectively. The rin mutation alters expression of both genes. Gene repression and mutant complementation demonstrate that LeMADS-RIN regulates ripening, whereas LeMADS-MC affects sepal development and inflorescence determinacy. LeMADS-RIN demonstrates an agriculturally important function of plant MADS-box genes and provides molecular insight into nonhormonal (developmental) regulation of ripening.
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            Ethylene biosynthesis and action in tomato: a model for climacteric fruit ripening.

            Elucidating the mechanisms involved in ripening of climacteric fruit and the role that ethylene plays in the process are key to understanding fruit production and quality. In this review, which is based largely on research in tomato, particular attention is paid to the role of specific isoforms of ACC synthase and ACC oxidase in controlling ethylene synthesis during the initiation and subsequent autocatalytic phase of ethylene production during ripening. Recent information on the structure and role of six different putative ethylene receptors in tomato is discussed, including evidence supporting the receptor inhibition model for ripening, possible differences in histidine kinase activity between receptors, and the importance of receptor LeETR4 in ripening. A number of ethylene-regulated ripening-related genes are discussed, including those involved in ethylene synthesis, fruit texture, and aroma volatile production, as well as experiments designed to elucidate the ethylene signalling pathway from receptor through intermediate components similar to those found in Arabidopsis, leading to transcription factors predicted to control the expression of ethylene-regulated genes.
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              The biosynthetic pathway of vitamin C in higher plants.

              Vitamin C (L-ascorbic acid) has important antioxidant and metabolic functions in both plants and animals, but humans, and a few other animal species, have lost the capacity to synthesize it. Plant-derived ascorbate is thus the major source of vitamin C in the human diet. Although the biosynthetic pathway of L-ascorbic acid in animals is well understood, the plant pathway has remained unknown-one of the few primary plant metabolic pathways for which this is the case. L-ascorbate is abundant in plants (found at concentrations of 1-5 mM in leaves and 25 mM in chloroplasts) and may have roles in photosynthesis and transmembrane electron transport. We found that D-mannose and L-galactose are efficient precursors for ascorbate synthesis and are interconverted by GDP-D-mannose-3,5-epimerase. We have identified an enzyme in pea and Arabidopsis thaliana, L-galactose dehydrogenase, that catalyses oxidation of L-galactose to L-galactono-1,4-lactone. We propose an ascorbate biosynthesis pathway involving GDP-D-mannose, GDP-L-galactose, L-galactose and L-galactono-1,4-lactone, and have synthesized ascorbate from GDP-D-mannose by way of these intermediates in vitro. The definition of this biosynthetic pathway should allow engineering of plants for increased ascorbate production, thus increasing their nutritional value and stress tolerance.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                J Exp Bot
                jexbot
                exbotj
                Journal of Experimental Botany
                Oxford University Press
                0022-0957
                1460-2431
                February 2009
                6 January 2009
                6 January 2009
                : 60
                : 2
                : 663-678
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Group of Biotechnology of Pharmaceutical Plants, Division of Pharmacognosy–Pharmacology, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 541 24 Thessaloniki, Greece
                [2 ]Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, Tower Road, Cornell Campus, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
                [3 ]USDA Plant, Soil, and Nutrition Laboratory, USDA-ARS, Tower Road, Cornell Campus, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
                Author notes
                [§ ]To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: kanellis@ 123456pharm.auth.gr
                [*]

                These authors contributed equally to this work.

                [†]

                Present address: Institute of Agrobiotechnology, Center for Research and Technology–Hellas, 6th Km Charilaou Thermi Rd, Thermi, Thessaloniki 57001, Greece.

                [‡]

                Present address: Departament de Bioquímica i Biologia Molecular, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.

                Article
                10.1093/jxb/ern322
                2651456
                19129160
                2a4dde7b-df8d-4fd5-903b-d26d376f9c99
                © 2009 The Author(s).

                This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                This paper is available online free of all access charges (see http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/open_access.html for further details)

                History
                : 13 October 2008
                : 12 November 2008
                Categories
                Research Papers

                Plant science & Botany
                anoxic and post-anoxic stress,ascorbic acid,tomato,solanum lycopersicon,gene expression,biosynthesis,ailsa craig,stress,ethylene

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