Scientists find the gene switch behind year-round strawberries
Bjornson M, Hardigan MA, Debernardi JM, Brukental H, Pincot DDA
Crispr
The strawberries filling your garden bed or farmers market table most of the year instead of just in June trace back to a single gene switch, and this research shows breeders can now flip that switch in any variety they want.
Most strawberry plants only flower in spring, but some special varieties flower almost all year and produce way more fruit. Researchers figured out that a gene called TFL1 acts like a brake pedal on flowering, and when they used CRISPR to snip that gene out of a spring-only strawberry, it started flowering during the long days of summer too, just like the everbearing types. This means breeders could potentially give any strawberry variety the ability to fruit nearly year-round.
Key Findings
Perpetual flowering in commercial strawberries is linked to the PFRU locus on chromosome 4B, which researchers narrowed down to a precise physical location using genome sequencing and RNA analysis.
Expression of the TERMINAL FLOWER 1 (TFL1) gene differs across all 4 subgenomes of octoploid strawberry between seasonal and perpetual flowering cultivars, mirroring a similar mechanism in wild diploid strawberry.
CRISPR knockout of TFL1 alone was sufficient to induce flowering under long summer days in a seasonal flowering cultivar, demonstrating a direct biotechnological route to perpetual flowering.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists used CRISPR gene editing to pinpoint the gene responsible for strawberries that flower all season instead of just in spring. Turning off this gene (TFL1) let a spring-only strawberry variety flower under long summer days, offering a new way to engineer continuous-flowering, higher-yield strawberries for any cultivar.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
CRISPR editing of TERMINAL FLOWER 1 recapitulates perpetual flowering in strawberry, mimicking repression by the PERPETUAL FLOWERING locus.
The development of perpetual flowering (PF) cultivars revolutionized octoploid strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa) cultivation by enabling nearly year-round fruit production and doubling fruit yield...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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The garden strawberry is a widely grown hybrid plant cultivated worldwide for its fruit. The genus Fragaria, the strawberries, is in the rose family, Rosaceae. The fruit is appreciated for its aroma, bright red colour, juicy texture, and sweetness. It is eaten either fresh or in prepared foods su...