Decreasing fructose‐1,6‐bisphosphate aldolase activity reduces plant growth and tolerance to chilling stress in tomato seedlings

In northern China, low temperature is the most common abiotic stresses for tomato plants cultivated in solar-greenhouse in winter. We recently found that the expression and enzyme activity of fructose-1,6-bisphosphate aldolases (FBAs) in tomato, which are important enzymes in the Calvin-Benson cycle (CBC), were significantly altered in tomato seedlings subjected to heat/cold stresses. In order to study the role of FBA in photosynthesis and in regulating cold stress responses of tomato seedlings (Solanum lycopersicum), we transformed a tomato inbred line (FF) with RNA interference (RNAi) vector containing SlFBA7 reverse tandem repeat sequence. We found that the decreased SlFBA7 expression led to the decreased activities of FBA, as well as the activities of other main enzymes in the CBC. We also noticed a decrease in net photosynthetic rate, ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate and soluble sugar content, stem diameter, dry weight and seed size in RNAi SlFBA7 plants compared to wild-type. However, there are no changes in starch contents in the RNAi transgenic plants. RNAi SlFBA7 plants showed a decreased germination rate, and an increased levels of superoxide anions (O2·- ) and hydrogen peroxide (H2 O2 ) under low temperature (8/5°C) and low-light intensity (100 μmol m-2 s-1 photon flux density) growth conditions. These findings demonstrated the important role of SlFBA7 in regulating growth and chilling tolerance of tomato seedlings, and suggested that the catalytic activity of FBA in the CBC is sensitive to temperature.