Overexpression of Tonoplast Transporter FvMATE51 Simultaneously Increases Fruit Size and Sugar Accumulation in Strawberry

作者：Keru Wang, Chi Zhang, Kang Cheng, Jinying Liu, Yuying Wang, Tong Chen, Guangtong Gao, Guozheng Qin · 发表于：Plant Biotechnology Journal · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1111/pbi.70478 · 被引用次数：1 · 研究领域：Plant nutrient uptake and metabolism、Polysaccharides and Plant Cell Walls、Plant Gene Expression Analysis

Fruit size and soluble sugar content are core quality traits determining consumer preference and market value. The determination of fruit size primarily depends on the precise coordination of cell division and cell expansion, under the control of a complex network involving quantitative trait loci (QTLs), plant hormone signaling, and cell wall modifying enzymes. By contrast, soluble sugar accumulation is largely attributed to the activity of specialized sugar transporters, particularly those localizing to the tonoplast which govern vacuolar sugar storage capacity (Chen et al. 2021). Nevertheless, the inherent trade-off between fruit growth and sugar accumulation constitutes one of the significant challenges in horticultural crop breeding and cultivation. Understanding the molecular basis coordinating these processes is therefore crucial for breeding high-yielding and high-quality horticultural crops. Multidrug and toxic compound extrusion (MATE) transporters, a class of secondary transporters driven by Na+ or H+ gradients, facilitate the movement of diverse substrates (e.g., organic acids and secondary metabolites) across membranes in plants (Upadhyay et al. 2019). Intriguingly, MATE members have recently been implicated in regulating the size of seeds in Arabidopsis, maize and rice (Sun et al. 2023; Suzuki et al. 2015), suggesting their roles beyond traditional substrate transport. However, the function of MATEs in regulating key quality traits of fleshy fruits, such as frui...