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Article|26 Oct 2022|OPEN
Natural variation in SlSOS2 promoter hinders salt resistance during tomato domestication 
Yechun Hong2,5 ,† , Xijin Guan3 ,† , Xu Wang1 ,† , Dali Kong2 , Shuojun Yu1 , Zhiqiang Wang1 , Yongdong Yu2 , Zhen-Fei Chao2 , Xue Liu2 , Sanwen Huang4 , Jian-Kang Zhu2,5 , Guangtao Zhu3 , , Zhen Wang,1,2 ,
1School of Life Sciences, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, Anhui, 230036, China
2Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology and Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032, China
3The AGISCAAS-YNNU Joint Academy of Potato Sciences, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, 650500, China
4Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen, 518000, China
5Institute of Advanced Biotechnology and School of Life Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China
*Corresponding author. E-mail: zhuguangtao@ynnu.edu.cn,wangzhen@ahau.edu.cn
†Yechun Hong and Xijin Guan,Xu Wang contributed equally to the study.

Horticulture Research 10,
Article number: uhac244 (2023)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/hr/uhac244
Views: 261

Received: 31 Aug 2022
Accepted: 24 Oct 2022
Published online: 26 Oct 2022

Abstract

Increasing soil salinization seriously impairs plant growth and development, resulting in crop loss. The Salt-Overly-Sensitive (SOS) pathway is indispensable to the mitigation of Na + toxicity in plants under high salinity. However, whether natural variations of SOS2 contribute to salt tolerance has not been reported. Here a natural variation in the SlSOS2 promoter region was identified to be associated with root Na+/K+ ratio and the loss of salt resistance during tomato domestication. This natural variation contains an ABI4-binding cis-element and plays an important role in the repression of SlSOS2 expression. Genetic evidence revealed that SlSOS2 mutations increase root Na+/K+ ratio under salt stress conditions and thus attenuate salt resistance in tomato. Together, our findings uncovered a critical but previously unknown natural variation of SOS2 in salt resistance, which provides valuable natural resources for genetic breeding for salt resistance in cultivated tomatoes and other crops.