genetic basis for postharvest chilling tolerance in tomato fruit
Authors: Lers Amnon , Foolad Majid R. , Friedman Haya 
Published: January 2022

ABSTRACT Postharvest losses of fresh produce are estimated globally to be around 30%. Reducing these losses is considered a major solution to ensure global food security. Storage at low temperatures is an efficient practice to prolong postharvest performance of crops with minimal negative impact on produce quality or human health and the environment. However, many fresh produce commodities are susceptible to chilling temperatures, and the application of cold storage is limited as it would cause physiological chilling injury (CI) leading to reduced produce quality. Further, the primary CI becomes a preferred site for pathogens leading to decay and massive produce losses. Thus, chilling sensitive crops should be stored at higher minimal temperatures, which curtails their marketing life and in some cases necessitates the use of other storage strategies. Development of new knowledge about the biological basis for chilling tolerance in fruits and vegetables should allow development of both new varieties more tolerant to cold, and more efficient postharvest storage treatments and storage conditions. In order to improve the agricultural performance of modern crop varieties, including tomato, there is great potential in introgression of marker-defined genomic regions from wild species onto the background of elite breeding lines. To exploit this potential for improving tomato fruit chilling tolerance during postharvest storage, we have used in this research a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population derived from a cross between the red-fruited tomato wild species SolanumpimpinellifoliumL. accession LA2093 and an advanced Solanum lycopersicumL. tomato breeding line NCEBR-1, developed in the laboratory of the US co-PI. The original specific objectives were: 1) Screening of RIL population resulting from the cross NCEBR1 X LA2093 for fruit chilling response during postharvest storage and estimation of its heritability; 2) Perform a transcriptopmic and bioinformatics analysis for the two parental lines following exposure to chilling storage. During the course of the project, we learned that we could measure greater differences in chilling responses among specific RILs compared to that observed between the two parental lines, and thus we decided not to perform transcriptomic analysis and instead invest our efforts more on characterization of the RILs. Performing the transcriptomic analysis for several RILs, which significantly differ in their chilling tolerance/sensitivity, at a later stage could result with more significant insights. The RIL population, (172 lines), was used in field experiment in which fruits were examined for chilling sensitivity by determining CI severity. Following the field experiments, including 4 harvest days and CI measurements, two extreme tails of the response distribution, each consisting of 11 RILs exhibiting either high sensitivity or tolerance to chilling stress, were identified and were further examined for chilling response in greenhouse experiments. Across the RILs, we found significant (P < 0.01) correlation between field and greenhouse grown plants in fruit CI. Two groups of 5 RILs, whose fruits exhibited reproducible chilling tolerant/sensitive phenotypes in both field and greenhouse experiments, were selected for further analyses. Numerous genetic, physiological, biochemical and molecular variations were investigated in response to postharvest chilling stress in the selected RILs. We confirmed the differential response of the parental lines of the RIL population to chilling stress, and examined the extent of variation in the RIL population in response to chilling treatment. We determined parameters which would be useful for further characterization of chilling response in the RIL population. These included chlorophyll fluorescence Fv/Fm, water loss, total non-enzymatic potential of antioxidant activity, ascorbate and proline content, and expression of LeCBF1 gene, known to be associated with cold acclimation. These parameters could be used in continuation studies for the identification and genetic mapping of loci contributing to chilling tolerance in this population, and identifying genetic markers associated with chilling tolerance in tomato. Once genetic markers associated with chilling tolerance are identified, the trait could be transferred to different genetic background via marker-assisted selection (MAS) and breeding. The collaborative research established in this program has resulted in new information and insights in this area of research and the collaboration will be continued to obtain further insights into the genetic, molecular biology and physiology of postharvest chilling tolerance in tomato fruit. The US Co-PI, developed the RIL population that was used for screening and measurement of the relevant chilling stress responses and conducted statistical analyses of the data. Because we were not able to grow the RIL population under field conditions in two successive generations, we could not estimate heritability of response to chilling temperatures. However, we plan to continue the research, grow the RIL progeny in the field again, and determine heritability of chilling tolerance in a near future. The IS and US investigators interacted regularly and plan to continue and expand on this study, since combing the expertise of the Co-PI in genetics and breeding with that of the PI in postharvest physiology and molecular biology will have great impact on this line of research, given the significant findings of this one-year feasibility project.