Abstract
Despite Lycopene content in tomato germplasm (both local and exotic) was evaluated against isolates of tomato mosaic virus (ToMV), using a locally preferred hybrid i.e., Rio Grande as a control. Promising lines with resistance to ToMV were assessed by total carotenoid and lycopene content in virus-challenged tomato genotypes using spectrophotometry and RP-HPLC. Our data showed that virus infection significantly lessens the total carotenoid and lycopene content in tomato fruit. Lycopene content was significantly reduced in infected tomato compared to healthy, in locally cultivated hybrid Rio Grande. The germplasm GT-47 (CLN-2123-E) showed 60% decrease in lycopene content in infected tomato when in comparison to healthy produce. The virus infection, however, exhibited less deleterious effect on DPPH-based anti-oxidant potential of the ToMV infected tomato genotypes.
Highlights
Tomato is of great nutritional value (Helyes et al, 2008), and is one of the main sources of a number of essential dietary-bioactive compounds such as the carotenoid lycopene, polyphenols, ascorbic acid, β-carotene and lutein (Kaur et al, 2013)
Rio Grande is followed by GT-29 and GT34, whilst tomato line GT-47 had the lowest titer of tomato mosaic virus (ToMV)
To ensure that the plants were free from other common tomato viruses, ELISA was performed for vector-borne viruses such as cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), potato virus X (PVX) and tomato yellow top (TYTV)
Summary
Tomato is of great nutritional value (Helyes et al, 2008), and is one of the main sources of a number of essential dietary-bioactive compounds such as the carotenoid lycopene, polyphenols, ascorbic acid, β-carotene and lutein (Kaur et al, 2013). Lycopene is one of the most powerful scavengers of free radicals and singlet oxygen in the body and efficiently eliminates active oxygen species (AOS) from the cells (Rao et al, 1998, Toor and Savage, 2005). Carotenoid biosynthesis is regulated during the ripening process by a combination of gene-regulation and post-translation regulation (Bramley, 2002) Both hybrids and open-pollinated (OP) varieties of tomato are currently incapable to meet domestic demand in Pakistan due to their susceptibility to biotic and abiotic stresses, low genetic potential, water shortages, the limited area under cultivation and competition with key crops (Saleem et al, 2009). The antioxidant activity of the healthy and the virus-infected tomatoes was determined using a 2,2diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging method
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