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The Destruction of Endogenous ABA Balance Caused by Fruit-specific SlNCED1-RNAi Affects Tomato Fruit Set

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Abstract

The productivity of many horticultural crops is determined by the fruit set. A complex hormone network regulates fruit setting, but the involvement of abscisic acid (ABA) in this regulation is unknown. SlNCED1, which encodes 9-cis-epoxycarotenoid dioxygenase (NCED), a crucial enzyme in ABA production, was studied using RNA interference (RNAi) controlled by a fruit-specific E8 promoter to establish the significance of ABA in fruit setting. The wild-type (WT) tomato pistil's endogenous ABA content and SlNCED1 expression increased from six days before full bloom (− 6 DAF, days after full bloom) to the day of full bloom (0 DAF), and peaked at the − 2 DAF and − 1 DAF, respectively. The content of endogenous ABA and the expression level of SlNCED1 decreased gradually from 0 to 6 DAF. The expression of SlNCED1 in the pistil of transgenic tomato decreased by 40.2%–63.4% compared with WT. The content of ABA in the pistil of transgenic tomato decreased by 35.3%–73.3% compared with WT. In addition, SlNCED1-RNAi considerably reduced the expression of ABA signaling pathway genes SlPYL3 (ABA receptor), SlPP2C1/2/5 (type 2C protein phosphatase), and SnRK2.6 (subfamily 2 of SNF1-related kinases), which strongly repress the ABA signaling transduction. These changes resulted in the aberrant development of the pistil. The fruit setting rate of tomatoes declined drastically to 9.1%. All fruits were parthenocarpic with a considerable proportion of fruit of abnormal shape. In conclusion, the disruption of endogenous ABA balance caused by fruit-specific SlNCED1-RNAi affects tomato pistil development and fruit set.

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Funding

This research was financially supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31902018, 32070344) and Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (Grant No. ZR2019PC016).

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  1. Xiaohua Wang and Xiaoyu Cui have contribute equality to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Agriculture and Forestry Science, Linyi University, Linyi, 276000, Shandong, China

    Xiaohua Wang, Xiaoyu Cui, Sun Shang, Xinmeng Zhang, Houchao Wang, Xing Zhang, Meng Xu, Zhenning Liu & Shengjie Dai

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  1. Xiaohua Wang
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Contributions

SD and ZL: conceptual and experiment designs; XW, XC and SS: experiments were conducted; XW, MX and SD: data analysis performed; XZ, HW and XZ: reagents/materials/analysis tools were contributed. SD and ZL: The report was written. All the authors have commented, read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zhenning Liu or Shengjie Dai.

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Wang, X., Cui, X., Shang, S. et al. The Destruction of Endogenous ABA Balance Caused by Fruit-specific SlNCED1-RNAi Affects Tomato Fruit Set. J Plant Growth Regul 42, 7200–7214 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00344-023-11008-w

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