Canalization of tomato fruit metabolism

Plants are noted for their phenotypic plasticity, but there are also examples of phenotypic canalization, which Alseekh et al. define as “the property of those phenotypic traits showing no environmental effect when individuals of a specific genotype are exposed to a set of different environments.” In this work, they explored the genetic underpinnings of canalization of tomato fruit metabolism. The examined metabolite profiles from inbred lines taken from three successive harvests to determine the extent of variability of metabolite pools, and identified QTL that are associated with metabolite canalization. The authors observed that, “the intervals they mapped to harbored few metabolism-associated genes, suggesting that the canalization of metabolism is largely controlled by regulatory genes.” (Summary by Mary Williams) Plant Cell 10.1105/tpc.17.00367