OPEN ACCESS ARTICLE

This Article Free via Open Access: OA OA Full Text Full Text (PDF) Supplemental Data OA All Versions of this Article: 21/10/3041    most recent tpc.109.066936v1 Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via CrossRef Google Scholar Articles by Vrebalov, J. Articles by Irish, V. F. PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Vrebalov, J. Articles by Irish, V. F. Agricola Articles by Vrebalov, J. Articles by Irish, V. F.

Fleshy Fruit Expansion and Ripening Are Regulated by the Tomato SHATTERPROOF Gene TAGL1^[W],[OA]

^a Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853
^b Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8104
^c Department of Plant Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853
^d U.S. Department of Agriculture–Agricultural Research Service, Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture and Health, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853
^e Division of Plant Sciences, University of Nottingham, Sutton Bonnington, Loughborough, Leics LE12 5RD, United Kingdom
^f Consiglio Nationale delle Ricerche-Instituto Di Genetica Vegetale, 80055 Portici (Naples), Italy
^g Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8104

⁵ Address correspondence to jjg33{at}cornell.edu.

The maturation and ripening of fleshy fruits is a developmental program that synchronizes seed maturation with metabolism, rendering fruit tissues desirable to seed dispersing organisms. Through RNA interference repression, we show that Tomato AGAMOUS-LIKE1 (TAGL1), the tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) ortholog of the duplicated SHATTERPROOF (SHP) MADS box genes of Arabidopsis thaliana, is necessary for fruit ripening. Tomato plants with reduced TAGL1 mRNA produced yellow-orange fruit with reduced carotenoids and thin pericarps. These fruit are also decreased in ethylene, indicating a comprehensive inhibition of maturation mediated through reduced ACC Synthase 2 expression. Furthermore, ectopic expression of TAGL1 in tomato resulted in expansion of sepals and accumulation of lycopene, supporting the role of TAGL1 in ripening. In Arabidopsis, the duplicate SHP1 and SHP2 MADS box genes regulate the development of separation layers essential for pod shatter. Expression of TAGL1 in Arabidopsis failed to completely rescue the shp1 shp2 mutant phenotypes, indicating that TAGL1 has evolved distinct molecular functions compared with its Arabidopsis counterparts. These analyses demonstrate that TAGL1 plays an important role in regulating both fleshy fruit expansion and the ripening process that together are necessary to promote seed dispersal of fleshy fruit. From this broad perspective, SHP1/2 and TAGL1, while distinct in molecular function, regulate similar activities via their necessity for seed dispersal in Arabidopsis and tomato, respectively.