Journal
NATURE GENETICS
Volume 49, Issue 1, Pages 162-168Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/ng.3733
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Funding
- EMBO Long-Term Fellowship [ALTF 1589-2014]
- Next-Generation BioGreen 21 Program (PMBC) [PJ011912012016]
- German Research Foundation (DFG) [SCHM2793/1-1]
- Max Planck Society
- German Research Foundation under the German-Israeli Project Cooperation program (DFG DIP project) [FE552/12-1]
- National Science Foundation Plant Genome Research Program [IOS-1237880]
- BARD [IS-4818-15]
- US-Israel Binational Agricultural Research AMP
- Development fund
- Agriculture and Food Research Initiative competitive grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture [2016-67013-24452]
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Plants evolved so that their flowering is triggered by seasonal changes in day lengths. However, day-length sensitivity in crops limits their geographical range of cultivation, and thus modification of the photoperiod response was critical for their domestication(2-11). Here we show that loss of day-length-sensitive flowering in tomato was driven by the florigen paralog and flowering repressor SELF-PRUNING 5G (SP5G). SP5G expression is induced to high levels during long days in wild species, but not in cultivated tomato because of cis-regulatory variation. CRISPR/Cas9-engineered mutations in SP5G cause rapid flowering and enhance the compact determinate growth habit of field tomatoes, resulting in a quick burst of flower production that translates to an early yield. Our findings suggest that pre-existing variation in SP5G facilitated the expansion of cultivated tomato beyond its origin near the equator in South America, and they provide a compelling demonstration of the power of gene editing to rapidly improve yield traits in crop breeding.
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