Location: Plant, Soil and Nutrition Research
Project Number: 8062-21000-050-048-R
Project Type: Reimbursable Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Jan 30, 2025
End Date: Aug 31, 2027
Objective:
Overall objectives are to identify tomato lines that can support breeding of high
quality tomatoes resistant to emerging disease threats, fruit set under high heat
and with improved shelf-life and quality. Consortia members will screen and
provide selected high potential tomato varieties to have their genomes sequenced by
the ARS lab in support of characterization of underlying genetic regulators of
desired improvement traits. Accessions identified at various steps in the selection
process will also be subject to whole genome transcriptome analysis during fruit
development and under different fruit set temperature conditions by the ARS lab to
gain insight into causative genes to be targeted by breeders for improvement. A
number of genes will be subject to gene editing for functional analysis. The ARS
lab will also participate in quality assessment of tomato fruit.
Approach:
1. Development of confirmed gene-edited tomato lines targeting 20 genes to the T1 or T2 generation for creation of true-breeding homozygous lines.
2. Phenotyping for shelf-life and quality attributes of gene-edited or other advanced breeding lines focusing on nutritional metabolites.
3. Genome resequencing of at least 20 genotypes relevant to the consortia breeding programs to facilitate marker development and in some cases target gene identification as resources to accelerate breeding outcomes for improved tomatoes.
4. Transcriptome analysis of several hundred samples in support of multiple
project needs requiring whole genome expression analysis in support of breeding
for tomato improvement.