BBX action on tomato responses to warm temperature conditions

• Grant number: 24/13995-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: October 01, 2024
• End date: September 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Botany - Pant Physiology
• Principal Investigator: Luciano Freschi
• Grantee: Débora Pagliuso
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 23/03330-3 - Light and stress signal transduction pathways: how to optimize multiple responses for improving crop yield and quality, AP.TEM

Abstract

Enhancing plant thermotolerance is an urgent priority to sustain global food production, ensure food security, and mitigate the impacts of climate change on agriculture. Therefore, understanding the complex regulatory networks and metabolic adjustments triggered by elevated temperatures is key to generating the critically needed climate-smart, heat-resistant crops. Besides the well-established mechanism of phytochrome (PHY)-dependent light perception, PHYs and some light-signaling related transcription factors (TFs) have also been recently implicated in temperature perception in Arabidopsis, with very limited information for other species. Among the TFs involved in light signaling, the BBX proteins have received increasing attention recently due to their involvement in various developmental processes and plant responses to stresses, including heat stress. In this project, we aim to explore the role of SlBBXs during tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) reproductive development under warm conditions by analyzing the impacts of knocking out selected SlBBX genes on tomato pollen development, fertilization, fruit production and fruit quality under optimal and elevated temperature. Developmental genetics, genetic engineering, omics, and bioinformatics approaches will be employed in this project. We foresee this research as providing important molecular and physiological insights for improving, through biotechnology, both productivity and nutritional quality under heat stress in tomato and potentially other fleshy crops.