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Functional analysis of MYB alleles from Solanum chilense and Solanum lycopersicum in controlling anthocyanin levels in heterologous tobacco plants
Author(s) -
Subban Patharajan,
Prakash Shanmugam,
Bootbool Mann Amir,
Kutsher Yaarit,
Evenor Dalia,
Levin Ilan,
Reuveni Moshe
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
physiologia plantarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.351
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1399-3054
pISSN - 0031-9317
DOI - 10.1111/ppl.13356
Subject(s) - anthocyanin , biology , solanum , solanaceae , myb , botany , amino acid , biochemistry , gene expression , gene
Flavonoids are natural pigments occurring in plants and are present in fruits, leaves, stems, roots, and flowers. Tobacco plants transformed with an MYB regulatory gene from either Solanum chilense ( Sc ) or S. lycopersicum ( Sl ) demonstrate that ScANT1 induces a higher level of anthocyanin accumulation in comparison to SlANT1 and that this gene is sufficient to promote increased anthocyanin levels. We compared the aptitude of ScANT1 protein to induce anthocyanin accumulation to that of SlANT1 protein in tobacco plants. We also tested the effect of amino acid substitutions in Sc ANT1 and Sl ANT1. We examined these synthetic alleles' effect following the over‐expression of additional anthocyanin synthesis regulators, such as the tomato bHLH (SlJAF13) protein. Our results show that the amino acid changes that differentiate ScANT1 from SlANT1 are the main contributors to the advantage that ScANT1 has over SlANT1 in anthocyanin accumulation per transcript unit. We further demonstrated that altering the amino acid composition of Sl ANT1 could increase anthocyanin accumulation, while reciprocally modifying ScANT1 lowers the anthocyanin level. These results confirm the increased anthocyanin level in tobacco is attributed to the amino acid differences between Sc ANT1 and Sl ANT1. We also show that the co‐expression of SlJAF13 with SlANT1 in tobacco plants represses the anthocyanin production.