Abstract
Domestication of tomato has resulted in large diversity in fruit phenotypes. An intensive phenotyping of 127 tomato accessions from 20 countries revealed extensive morphological diversity in fruit traits. The diversity in fruit traits clustered the accessions into nine classes and identified certain promising lines having desirable traits pertaining to total soluble salts (TSS), carotenoids, ripening index, weight and shape. Factor analysis of the morphometric data from Tomato Analyzer showed that the fruit shape is a complex trait shared by several factors. The 100% variance between round and flat fruit shapes was explained by one discriminant function having a canonical correlation of 0.874 by stepwise discriminant analysis. A set of 10 genes (ACS2, COP1, CYC-B, RIN, MSH2, NAC-NOR, PHOT1, PHYA, PHYB and PSY1) involved in various plant developmental processes were screened for SNP polymorphism by EcoTILLING. The genetic diversity in these genes revealed a total of 36 non-synonymous and 18 synonymous changes leading to the identification of 28 haplotypes. The average frequency of polymorphism across the genes was 0.038/Kb. Significant negative Tajima’D statistic in two of the genes, ACS2 and PHOT1 indicated the presence of rare alleles in low frequency. Our study indicates that while there is low polymorphic diversity in the genes regulating plant development, the population shows wider phenotype diversity. Nonetheless, morphological and genetic diversity of the present collection can be further exploited as potential resources in future.
Highlights
Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is one of the major vegetable crops cultivated globally and ranks second in production after potato (Solanum tuberosum) worldwide [1]
Our study reveals that the fruit development is less significantly correlated with the Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) in analyzed genes implying for a more complex regulation of this trait
A total of 127 accessions from three sources (NBPGR, India; IIVR, India; and TGRC, USA; S4 Table) were analyzed for variability. These accessions were phenotyped at different developmental stages using 16 major and 63 minor morphological categories (S2 Table) corresponding to architectural, vegetative and reproductive variations in tomato with reference to a commercially grown cultivar Arka Vikas (AV) (S1 Fig)
Summary
Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is one of the major vegetable crops cultivated globally and ranks second in production after potato (Solanum tuberosum) worldwide [1]. Tomatoes are rich in sugars and free acids, which are the key components determining taste, whereas, volatile organic compounds determine the flavor [2]. Tomatoes contain essential as well as beneficial components like carbohydrates, fiber, minerals, protein, fat, glycoalkaloids, phytosterols etc. Several essential vitamins like vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, folic acid and several water-soluble vitamins are present in tomato [4]. The ripened tomato fruits are deep red colored owing to the accumulation of lycopene which constitutes more than 80% of total carotenoids. Other minor carotenoids such as β-carotene, γ-carotene, phytoene contribute to the antioxidant property of tomato. Β- and γ-carotenes have pro-vitamin A activity. Tomato has flavonoids like chlorogenic acid, rutin, and plastoquinones, tocopherols that have antioxidant properties [4]
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