Brassinosteroids in Cucurbits: Modulators of Plant Growth Architecture and Stress Response.

Brassinosteroids (BRs) are steroid hormones that are essential for plant growth, development, and environmental adaptation. They control the division, elongation, and differentiation of various cell types throughout the entire plant life cycle, affecting growth and the stress response. Therefore, fine-tuning of BR biosynthesis and modulation of signaling pathways offer possibilities for developing cultivars characterized by adjusted plant architecture or improved stress tolerance to benefit crop production.

Comprehensive proteomic profiling of Cucumber mosaic virus infection: identifying key proteins and pathways involved in resistance and susceptibility in melon.

Background: Melon (Cucumis melo L.) is the model species of the Cucurbitaceae family and an important crop. However, its yield is primarily affected by viruses.

-Mediated Resistance to CMV in Melon Can Be Overcome by Mixed Infections with Potyviruses.

Resistance to cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) strain LS in melon is controlled by the gene , which restricts phloem entry. In nature, CMV is commonly found in mixed infections, particularly with potyviruses, where a synergistic effect is frequently produced. We have explored the possibility that this synergism could help CMV-LS to overcome -mediated resistance.

Mutations in CmVPS41 controlling resistance to cucumber mosaic virus display specific subcellular localization.

Resistance to cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) in melon (Cucumis melo L.) has been described in several exotic accessions and is controlled by a recessive resistance gene, cmv1, that encodes a vacuolar protein sorting 41 (CmVPS41). cmv1 prevents systemic infection by restricting the virus to the bundle sheath cells, preventing viral phloem entry.

Fruit Morphology and Ripening-Related QTLs in a Newly Developed Introgression Line Collection of the Elite Varieties 'Védrantais' and 'Piel de Sapo'.

Melon is an economically important crop with widely diverse fruit morphology and ripening characteristics. Its diploid sequenced genome and multiple genomic tools make this species suitable to study the genetic architecture of fruit traits. With the development of this introgression line population of the elite varieties 'Piel de Sapo' and 'Védrantais', we present a powerful tool to study fruit morphology and ripening traits that can also facilitate characterization or pyramidation of QTLs in melon types.

Modulating climacteric intensity in melon through QTL stacking.

Fruit ripening is one of the main processes affecting fruit quality and shelf life. In melon there are both climacteric and non-climacteric genotypes, making it a suitable species to study fruit ripening. In the current study, in order to fine tune ripening, we have pyramided three climacteric QTLs in the non-climacteric genotype "Piel de Sapo": , and .

Knock-Out of Affects Melon Climacteric Fruit Ripening.

Fruit ripening is an important process that affects fruit quality. A QTL in melon, involved in climacteric ripening regulation, has been found to be encoded by , a homologue of the tomato gene. To further investigate function, we obtained two CRISPR/Cas9-mediated mutants ( and ) in the climacteric Védrantais background.

CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing uncovers the roles of CONSTITUTIVE TRIPLE RESPONSE 1 and REPRESSOR OF SILENCING 1 in melon fruit ripening and epigenetic regulation.

Melon (Cucumis melo) has emerged as an alternative model to tomato for studying fruit ripening due to the coexistence of climacteric and non-climacteric varieties. Previous characterization of a major quantitative trait locus (QTL), ETHQV8.1, that is able to trigger climacteric ripening in a non-climacteric background resulted in the identification of a negative regulator of ripening CTR1-like (MELO3C024518) and a putative DNA demethylase ROS1 (MELO3C024516) that is the orthologue of DML2, a DNA demethylase that regulates fruit ripening in tomato.

A novel introgression line collection to unravel the genetics of climacteric ripening and fruit quality in melon.

Introgression lines are valuable germplasm for scientists and breeders, since they ease genetic studies such as QTL interactions and positional cloning as well as the introduction of favorable alleles into elite varieties. We developed a novel introgression line collection in melon using two commercial European varieties with different ripening behavior, the climacteric cantalupensis 'Védrantais' as recurrent parent and the non-climacteric inodorus 'Piel de Sapo' as donor parent. The collection contains 34 introgression lines, covering 99% of the donor genome.

Is a General Gatekeeper for Resistance to Phloem Entry in Melon.

Melon production is often compromised by viral diseases, which cannot be treated with chemicals. Therefore, the use of genetic resistances is the main strategy for generating crops resistant to viruses. Resistance to (CMV) in melon is scarcely described in few accessions.

A mutation in the melon Vacuolar Protein Sorting 41prevents systemic infection of Cucumber mosaic virus.

In the melon exotic accession PI 161375, the gene cmv1, confers recessive resistance to Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) strains of subgroup II. cmv1 prevents the systemic infection by restricting the virus to the bundle sheath cells and impeding viral loading to the phloem. Here we report the fine mapping and cloning of cmv1.

Quantitative trait loci analysis of melon (Cucumis melo L.) domestication-related traits.

Loci on LGIV, VI, and VIII of melon genome are involved in the control of fruit domestication-related traits and they are candidate to have played a role in the domestication of the crop. The fruit of wild melons is very small (20-50 g) without edible pulp, contrasting with the large size and high pulp content of cultivated melon fruits. An analysis of quantitative trait loci (QTL) controlling fruit morphology domestication-related traits was carried out using an in vitro maintained F population from the cross between the Indian wild melon "Trigonus" and the western elite cultivar 'Piel de Sapo'.

cmv1 is a gate for Cucumber mosaic virus transport from bundle sheath cells to phloem in melon.

Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) has the broadest host range among plant viruses, causing enormous losses in agriculture. In melon, strains of subgroup II are unable to establish a systemic infection in the near-isogenic line SC12-1-99, which carries the recessive resistance gene cmv1 from the accession PI 161375, cultivar 'Songwhan Charmi'. Strains of subgroup I overcome cmv1 resistance in a manner dependent on the movement protein.

Combined use of genetic and genomics resources to understand virus resistance and fruit quality traits in melon.

The availability of the genome sequence of many crop species during the past few years has opened a new era in plant biology, allowing for the performance of massive genomic studies in plant species other than the classical models Arabidopsis and rice. One of these crop species is melon (Cucumis melo), a cucurbit of high economic value that has become an interesting model for the study of biological processes such as fruit ripening, sex determination and phloem transport. The recent availability of the melon genome sequence, together with a number of genetic and genomic resources, provides powerful tools that can be used to assist in the main melon breeding targets, namely disease resistance and fruit quality.

Four sequence positions of the movement protein of Cucumber mosaic virus determine the virulence against cmv1-mediated resistance in melon.

The resistance to a set of strains of Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) in the melon accession PI 161375, cultivar 'Songwhan Charmi', is dependent on one recessive gene, cmv1, which confers total resistance, whereas a second set of strains is able to overcome it. We tested 11 strains of CMV subgroups I and II in the melon line SC12-1-99, which carries the gene cmv1, and showed that this gene confers resistance to strains of subgroup II only and that restriction is not related to either viral replication or cell-to-cell movement. This is the first time that a resistant trait has been correlated with CMV subgroups.

Shaping melons: agronomic and genetic characterization of QTLs that modify melon fruit morphology.

The consistency of quantitative trait locus (QTL) effects among genetic backgrounds is a key factor for introgressing QTLs from initial mapping experiments into applied breeding programs. We have selected four QTLs (fs6.4, fw4.

RNA silencing suppression by a second copy of the P1 serine protease of Cucumber vein yellowing ipomovirus, a member of the family Potyviridae that lacks the cysteine protease HCPro.

The P1 protein of viruses of the family Potyviridae is a serine proteinase, which is highly variable in length and sequence, and its role in the virus infection cycle is not clear. One of the proposed activities of P1 is to assist HCPro, the product that viruses of the genus Potyvirus use to counteract antiviral defense mediated by RNA silencing. Indeed, an HCPro-coding region is present in all the genomes of members of the genera Potyvirus, Rymovirus, and Tritimovirus that have been sequenced.

Virus-induced gene silencing in plants.

Virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) is a technology that exploits an RNA-mediated antiviral defense mechanism. In plants infected with unmodified viruses the mechanism is specifically targeted against the viral genome. However, with virus vectors carrying inserts derived from host genes the process can be additionally targeted against the corresponding mRNAs.