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ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #122957
Title: JASMONATE AND SALICYLATE INDUCE THE EXPRESSION OF PATHOGENESIS-RELATED PROTEIN GENES AND INCREASE RESISTANCE TO CHILLING INJURY IN TOMATO FRUIT

Author
item DING, CHANG-KUI - ZAAS, ZHEJING, CHINA
item Wang, Chien
item Gross, Kenneth
item Smith, David

Submitted to: Planta
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/19/2001
Publication Date: 12/12/2001
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Chilling injury is a problem in most crops of tropical or subtropical origin. About one-third of all fruits and vegetables in the U.S. markets are susceptible to chilling injury. Symptoms of chilling injury such as pitting, discoloration, internal breakdown, and decay can result in substantial losses during marketing. Some techniques including treatments with natural products and heat have been shown to reduce chilling injury. However, the mechanism of how these treatments work is not fully understood. This study found that treatment of tomato fruit with a naturally occurring substance, methyl jasmonate, significantly increased the expression of some pathogenesis-related (PR) genes. The increased accumulation of these PR genes may be related to the increased resistance of fruit tissue to chilling injury and decay. Better understanding of the mechanism of chilling injury and how these techniques work will improve our ability to design more effective methods for maintaining market quality of fruits and vegetables. This research has the potential to benefit the produce industry and consumers.

Technical Abstract: Treatment of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum L. cv Beefstake) fruit with low concentrations of (0.01 mM) methyl jasmonate (MeJA) or methyl salicylate (MeSA) significantly enhanced their resistance to chilling temperature and decreased the incidence of decay during low temperature storage. While studying the expression of pathogenesis-related (PR) protein genes, different accumulation patterns of PR protein mRNAs in tomato fruit were observed. MeJA significantly increased the accumulation of PR-2b transcripts encoding intracellular -1,3-glucanase and enhanced the mRNA levels of PR-2a and PR-3b encoding extracellular -1,3-glucanase and intracellular chitinase, respectively. MeSA significantly increased accumulation of PR-2b and PR-3a mRNAs and slightly increased PR-3b mRNA accumulation. Chilling temperature did not significantly enhance the accumulation of PR protein mRNAs in untreated fruit. However, the accumulation of PR-3b mRNAs in MeSA treated fruit was enhanced following low temperature storage. Transcript abundance of catalase genes also was investigated in different pretreated tomatoes. The accumulation of cat1 mRNA was increased significantly by MeJA, while it was reduced by MeSA treatment. These results suggest that the pre- treatment of tomato fruit with MeSA or MeJA induces the synthesis of some stress proteins, such as PR proteins, which leads to increase chilling tolerance and resistance to pathogens, thereby decreasing the incidence of decay.