Department of Life Sciences, POSTECH Biotech Center, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, Korea.
Division of Biological Sciences and Research Institute for Basic Science, Wonkwang University, Iksan, Korea.
Plant Biotechnol J. 2022 Aug;20(8):1533-1545. doi: 10.1111/pbi.13831. Epub 2022 May 17.
The continuous growth of the global population and the increase in the amount of arid land has severely constrained agricultural crop production. To solve this problem, many researchers have attempted to increase productivity through the efficient distribution of energy; however, the direct relationship between the plant vasculature, specifically phloem development, and crop yield is not well established. Here, we demonstrate that an optimum increase in phloem-transportation capacity by reducing SIJUL expression leads to improved sink strength in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.). SIJUL, a negative regulator of phloem development, suppresses the translation of a positive regulator of phloem development, SlSMXL5. The suppression of SlJUL increases the number of phloem cells and sucrose transport, but only an optimal reduction of SlJUL function greatly enhances sink strength in tomato, improving fruit setting, and yield contents by 37% and 60%, respectively. We show that the increment in phloem cell number confers spare transport capacity. Our results suggest that the control of phloem-transport capacity within the threshold could enhance the commitment of photosynthates to instigate yield improvement.
全球人口的持续增长和干旱土地面积的增加严重限制了农业作物的生产。为了解决这个问题，许多研究人员试图通过有效地分配能量来提高生产力；然而，植物脉管系统（特别是韧皮部发育）与作物产量之间的直接关系尚未得到很好的确定。在这里，我们证明通过降低 SIJUL 的表达来提高韧皮部运输能力可以使番茄（Solanum lycopersicum L.）的库强得到改善。SIJUL 是韧皮部发育的负调控因子，它抑制了韧皮部发育的正调控因子 SlSMXL5 的翻译。SlJUL 的抑制增加了韧皮部细胞和蔗糖的运输数量，但只有最优地降低 SlJUL 的功能才能显著增强番茄的库强，使结实率和产量分别提高 37%和 60%。我们表明，韧皮部细胞数量的增加赋予了额外的运输能力。我们的研究结果表明，在阈值内控制韧皮部运输能力可以增强光合作用产物的投入，从而提高产量。
