Morphological and gene expression characterization of , a floral chili pepper mutant caused by a nonsense mutation in .

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Chili peppers are important as vegetables and ornamental crops, because of the variety of fruit shapes and colors. Understanding of flower and fruit development in is limited compared with closely related Solanaceae crops such as tomato. This study reports a novel malformed fruit mutant named (), which was isolated from an ethyl methanesulfonate-induced mutant population of chili pepper. exhibited homeotic changes in the floral bud, which were characterized by conversion of petals and stamens into sepal-like and carpel-like organs, respectively. In addition, the indeterminate formation of carpel-like tissue was observed. Genetic analysis demonstrated that the causative gene in is a nonsense mutation in . This is the first characterization of an mutant in . Unlike tomatoes, the mutation did not affect the architecture of sympodial unit or flowering time but mainly affected the formation of flower organs. Gene expression analysis suggested that a nonsense mutation in led to decreased expression of multiple class B genes, resulting in homeotic changes in the flower and fruit. This mutant may provide new insights at the molecular level in understanding flower organ formation and the genetic manipulation of fruit shape in chili peppers.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11032-022-01304-w.