title: A single locus confers tolerance to continuous light and allows substantial yield increase in tomato.
abstract: An important constraint for plant biomass production is the natural day length. Artificial light allows for longer photoperiods, but tomato plants develop a detrimental leaf injury when grown under continuous light--a still poorly understood phenomenon discovered in the 1920s. Here, we report a dominant locus on chromosome 7 of wild tomato species that confers continuous light tolerance. Genetic evidence, RNAseq data, silencing experiments and sequence analysis all point to the type III light harvesting chlorophyll a/b binding protein 13 (CAB-13) gene as a major factor responsible for the tolerance. In Arabidopsis thaliana, this protein is thought to have a regulatory role balancing light harvesting by photosystems I and II. Introgressing the tolerance into modern tomato hybrid lines, results in up to 20% yield increase, showing that limitations for crop productivity, caused by the adaptation of plants to the terrestrial 24-h day/night cycle, can be overcome.
authors.affiliation: 1] Horticulture and Product Physiology, Wageningen University, PO Box 630, 6700 AP Wageningen, The Netherlands [2] Laboratory of Plant Physiology, Wageningen University, PO Box 658, 6700 AR Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Aaron I
authors.initials: AI
authors.lastname: Velez-Ramirez
authors.affiliation: Horticulture and Product Physiology, Wageningen University, PO Box 630, 6700 AP Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Wim
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: van Ieperen
authors.affiliation: 1] Laboratory of Plant Physiology, Wageningen University, PO Box 658, 6700 AR Wageningen, The Netherlands [2] Centre for BioSystems Genomics, PO Box 98, 6700 AB Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Dick
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Vreugdenhil
authors.affiliation: Monsanto Holland B.V., PO Box 1050, 2660 BB Bergschenhoek, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Pieter M J A
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: van Poppel
authors.affiliation: Horticulture and Product Physiology, Wageningen University, PO Box 630, 6700 AP Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Ep
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Heuvelink
authors.affiliation: 1] Monsanto Holland B.V., PO Box 1050, 2660 BB Bergschenhoek, The Netherlands [2].
authors.forename: Frank F
authors.initials: FF
authors.lastname: Millenaar
mesh_terms: D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics; D001483:Base Sequence; D002241:Carbohydrates / Q000737:chemistry; D002734:Chlorophyll / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D002875:Chromosomes / Q000648:ultrastructure; D003433:Crosses, Genetic; D017353:Gene Deletion; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D020868:Gene Silencing; D005838:Genotype; D006720:Homozygote; D008027:Light; D018551:Solanum lycopersicum / Q000235:genetics* / Q000528:radiation effects*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010641:Phenotype; D010788:Photosynthesis; D045322:Photosynthetic Reaction Center Complex Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D010944:Plants / Q000235:genetics; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA
chemical_list: D002241:Carbohydrates; D045322:Photosynthetic Reaction Center Complex Proteins; D002734:Chlorophyll