Vacuolar accumulation of acidic metabolites is an important aspect of tomato fruit flavour and nutritional quality. The amino acids Asp and Glu accumulate to high concentrations during ripening, while γ-aminobutyrate (GABA) shows an approximately stoichiometric decline. Given that GABA can be catabolised to form Glu and subsequently Asp, and the requirement for the fruit to maintain osmotic hom...

The study was taken up with the objective of testing whether the endophytic organisms isolated from crops that are normally non-hosts to the bacterial wilt pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum possessed pathogen-antagonistic activity and to evaluate the selected isolates for the alleviation of wilt disease in the target tomato crop through horizontal movement of promising organisms. Sixteen endophyt...

The suppressive potentials of Bacillus and Paenibacillus strains isolated from the tomato phyllosphere were investigated to obtain new biocontrol candidates against Fusarium crown and root rot of tomato. The suppressive activities of 20 bacterial strains belonging to these genera were examined using seedlings and potted tomato plants, and two Paenibacillus strains (12HD2 and 42NP7) were selecte...

MADS-box genes have been shown to play a role in the formation of fruits, both in Arabidopsis and in tomato. In peach, two C-class MADS-box genes have been isolated. Both of them are expressed during flower and mesocarp development. Here a detailed analysis of a gene that belongs to the PLENA subfamily of MADS-box genes is shown. The expression of this PLENA-like gene (PpPLENA) increases during...

Tobamovirus is a group of viruses that have become serious pathogens of crop plants. As part of a study informing risk of wild plant virus spill over to crops, we investigated the capacity of a solanaceous-infecting tobamovirus from an isolated indigenous flora to adapt to new exotic hosts. Yellow tailflower mild mottle virus (YTMMV) (genus Tobamovirus, family Virgaviridae) was isolated from a ...

Carotenoid biosynthesis is a process vital to a11 photosynthetic organisms. Carotenoids provide photoprotection for the photosynthetic apparatus by dissipating excess energy in the form of heat (Koyama, 1991). PSY catalyzes the formation of phytoene, the first dedicated intermediate in the carotenoid biosynthetic pathway. We have previously isolated two PSY cDNAs from tomato that correspond to ...

The use of chemical fertilizers has resulted in the depletion soils mineral elements and telluric microorganisms. Thus, for an improvement crop growth, exploitation microorganisms such as Pseudomonas can be alternative. Laboratory work made it possible to isolate strains from rhizospheres tomato, eggplant onion. These were also tested presence different concentrations certain metals (CuSO4 ZnSO...

AvrPtoB is a type III effector protein from Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato that physically interacts with the tomato Pto kinase and, depending on the host genotype, either elicits or suppresses programmed cell death associated with plant immunity. We reported previously that avrPtoB-related sequences are present in diverse gram-negative phytopathogenic bacteria. Here we describe characterizati...

The plant growth regulator ethylene controls the onset of ripening in climacteric fruit (Schuch et al., 1989). Two enzymes are responsible for ethylene biosynthesis from its precursor S-adenosyl methionine: ACC synthase and ACC oxidase (Yang and Hoffman, 1984). Two cDNA clones, pTOM13 and pHTOM5, have been isolated from tomato and shown to encode ACC oxidase by expression in yeast (Hamilton et ...