Metabolic engineering of xanthophyll content in tomato fruits

FEBS Letters

Camara, Bilal¹  Dharmapuri, Sridhar²  Rosati, Carlo²  Aquilani, Riccardo²  Bouvier, Florence¹  Giuliano, Giovanni²  Pallara, Patrizia² 

[1] CNRS, Plant Molecular Biology Institute, 12 rue du Général Zimmer, 67084 Strasbourg Cedex, France;ENEA, Casaccia Research Center, P.O. Box 2400, Rome 00100AD, Italy

关键词: β-Carotene;    Zeaxanthin;    β-Cryptoxanthin;   

DOI  :  10.1016/S0014-5793(02)02699-6

学科分类：生物化学/生物物理

来源: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

【 摘 要 】

Ripe tomato fruits accumulate significant amounts of the linear carotene lycopene, but only trace amounts of xanthophylls (oxygenated carotenoids). We overexpressed the lycopene β-cyclase (b-Lcy) and β-carotene hydroxylase (b-Chy) genes under the control of the fruit-specific Pds promoter. Transgene and protein expression was followed through semi-quantitative reverse transcription-PCR, Western blotting, and enzyme assays. Fruits of the transformants showed a significant increase of β-carotene, β-cryptoxanthin and zeaxanthin. The carotenoid composition of leaves remained unaltered. The transgenes and the phenotype are inherited in a dominant Mendelian fashion. This is the first example of successful metabolic engineering of xanthophyll content in tomato fruits.

【 授权许可】

Unknown