Fruit quality of transgenic tomatoes with suppressed expression of LeETR1 and LeETR2 genes.

Tomato fruit is renowned for its high concentration of phyto-nutrients such as lycopene and carotenoids, overall contribution to nutrition and human health. The effect of antisense suppression of ethylene receptor genes LeETR1 and LeETR2 over the quality of tomato fruit was investigated in this paper. During the different stages of ripening, the fruit of antisense transgenic tomatoes of ale1 and ale2, compared to their wild type B1, showed higher total soluble solids, acidity and electrolytes accumulations and color development; lower fruit firmness, fruit viscosity and fruit elasticity. However, no significant difference of Vc content, total sugar, fruit pH value and fruit pigments between transgenic lines and B1 were noticed. ale1 and ale2 showed shortened shelf life. The data suggest that fruit with suppressed LeETR1 and LeETR2 genes expression have stronger ethylene response, which accelerate fruit ripening and greatly altered tomato variety characteristics.