Keywords
bioinformatics
Solanum lycopersicum
How to Cite
Abstract
Chlorophyll synthesis plays an important role in maintaining photosynthetic efficiency, as well as in regulating plant development and tolerance to abiotic stress conditions such as nitrogen deficiency under nutrient management regimes. It has been demonstrated that the chlorophyll synthesis pathway maintains a mutually regulated dynamic relationship with the intracellular nitrogen assimilation pathway. This dynamic is controlled by the activity of enzymes such as uroporphyrinogen III methyltransferase (UPM1), which is key to tolerance under nitrogen-deficiency stress and to maintaining optimal levels of chlorophyll synthesis. The objective of this study was to identify the genes involved in the chlorophyll synthesis pathway and UPM1, characterize their functions, evaluate their gene expression levels in silico, and quantify their total chlorophyll in tomato under nitrogen-deficient conditions. The results indicate that the proteins involved in the chlorophyll synthesis pathway and their functions are conserved in tomato plants. Moreover, nitrogen deficiency reduced the gene expression levels of SlHEMD and SlUPM1 (36 ans 49 %, respectively), as well as total chlorophyll content by 20 %.
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