Abstract
Fruit sweetness is one of the most important properties for both fresh and processed tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum L.). Previously, development of varieties with high sugar content has primarily depended on organoleptic assessments by breeders because of insufficient information regarding the biological mechanism(s) controlling fruit sweetness. However, during the last two decades, research on fruit metabolic physiology and functional genomics has produced substantial progress in tomato. Among sugar-metabolic enzymes, acid invertase rather than sucrose synthase has been known to be involved in regulation of fruit sugar level and its composition. On the other hand, recent studies have revealed that proteins which are not directly related to sugar metabolism such as sucrose transporter, starch biosynthetic enzyme, and vacuolar processing enzyme affect on sugar level and its composition in tomato fruit. In this chapter, those new findings reported by recent studies are introduced, and then the possibility of molecular breeding for the modification of sugar content and composition in tomato fruit will be discussed.
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Matsukura, C. (2016). Sugar Accumulation in Tomato Fruit and Its Modification Using Molecular Breeding Techniques. In: Ezura, H., Ariizumi, T., Garcia-Mas, J., Rose, J. (eds) Functional Genomics and Biotechnology in Solanaceae and Cucurbitaceae Crops. Biotechnology in Agriculture and Forestry, vol 70. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48535-4_9
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