Author(s)

Sridharan Jegadeesan^1,2, Etan Pressman¹, Avital Beery¹, Vikram Singh¹, Lázaro Eustáquio Pereira Peres³, Sara Shabtai¹, Nurit Firon^1*

¹Department of Vegetable and Field Crops, Institute of Plant Sciences, Agricultural Research Organization, The Volcani Center, Rishon LeZion, Israel.
²Field Application Scientist, Premas Life Sciences, Bangalore, India.
³Laboratory of Hormonal Control of Plant Development, Departamento de Ciências Biológicas, Escola Superior de Agricultura “Luiz de Queiroz”, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Piracicaba, Brazil.

Above-optimal temperatures reduce yield in many crops, including tomato, largely because of the heat-sensitivity of their reproduction process. A full understanding of heat-stress (HS) response and thermotolerance of tomato reproduction is still lacking. Recently, using external application of the plant hormone ethylene, it was demonstrated that ethylene plays a role in heat-tolerance of tomato pollen (the male reproductive cells). In order to expand our understanding on involvement of ethylene in tomato pollen thermotolerance, we analyzed the response of wild type and ethylene-related tomato mutant plants to HS, at physiological and molecular levels. We report that mild chronic HS conditions highly reduce the number of viable and germinating pollen grains as well as the production of seeded fruits in wild type tomato plants, while no significant reduction was detected/observed in pollen quality, number of seeded fruits and seeds per fruit in plants of the ethylene over-producer mutant epinastic. Our findings suggest that ethylene is involved in thermotolerance of tomato reproduction, pointing to an effect on pollen viability and germination potential, highlighting candidate genes involved in pollen response to HS (like SlHSP17, SlHSP101, SlMBF1) and suggesting directions for further studies.

Ethylene, Mild Chronic Heat Stress, Pollen Grains, Reproduction, Solanum lycopersicum, Thermotolerance

Jegadeesan, S. , Pressman, E. , Beery, A. , Singh, V. , Pereira Peres, L. , Shabtai, S. and Firon, N. (2021) An Ethylene Over-Producing Mutant of Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), Epinastic, Exhibits Tolerance to High Temperature Conditions. American Journal of Plant Sciences, 12, 487-497. doi: 10.4236/ajps.2021.124032.