Alteration of Tomato Plants by Genetic Modification of Peptide Ligands

On October 16, 2024, Choon-Tak Kwon's team from Kyung Hee University published an article titled "Precise customization of plant architecture by combinatorial genetic modification of peptide ligands" in Plant Communications. This study modified small peptide genes through multi-gene editing technology to achieve precise customization of tomato plant type.

Research Background

In plants, the dynamic balance of receptor and peptide ligands plays an important role in regulating plant development. Among them, previous studies have found that the receptor-like kinase, ERECTA, which is rich in leucine repeat sequences, can regulate the elongation of plant stems, and this mechanism is conserved in plants. For example, the tomato slerecta mutant exhibits a dwarf phenotype, which provides convenience for growing tomatoes in urban agriculture. However, the phenotypes of wild-type and slerecta mutant plants are relatively extreme, and there are many ligands for ERECTA. Therefore, the researchers speculated that by multi-gene editing of the EPIDERMAL PATTERNING FACTOR-LIKE (SlEPFL) genes, tomatoes with different plant heights may be obtained.

Research Content

In this study, researchers first used multi-gene editing technology to genetically modify the small peptide ligands recognized by ERECTA in plants. They used cherry tomato "sweet100 sp sp5g" as the genetic background, combined with transcriptome information and sequence conservation analysis, and selected three small peptide genes, namely slepfl4, slepfl5 and slepfl6, for CRISPR/Cas9 knockout.

Then, the researchers screened and analyzed the phenotypes to evaluate the effects of different small peptide ligand variants on plant growth morphology. They first evaluated the phenotypes of the slepfl4/6 double mutant and found that the phenotypic changes were relatively weak. The authors further analyzed other mutants, including slepfl4/5, slepfl5/6, and slepfl4/5/6, and finally obtained tomato plants with plant height phenotypes similar to the slerecta mutant. Moreover, the tomato mutants of different degrees were similar to the expected results, showing a gradient decline, that is, the more mutant genes, the shorter the plants.

Finally, the authors systematically analyzed the phenotypes of these mutants, including stem height, fruit size, and quality (such as sugar content). It was found that compared with plant height, the yield and quality were less affected, and these gene-edited plants can be used as new varieties.

Figure 1. Experimental design of this study. (Seo, et al., 2024)

Summary

This study shows that genetic modification of peptide ligands through genome editing can effectively change the plant type, demonstrating the advantages of combined genetic modification and providing new tools and ideas for plant physiology and agricultural science. It also provides a new perspective for future plant breeding, especially in responding to climate change and improving crop adaptability.

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Reference

1. Seo, M.G., et al. Precise customization of plant architecture by combinatorial genetic modification of peptide ligands. Plant Commun. 2024: 101175.