The use of SlAdh2 promoter as a novel fruit-specific promoter in transgenic tomato

Fruit-specific promoters play an important role in the improvement of traits, such as fruit quality through genetic engineering. In tomato, the development of fruit-specific promoters was previously reported, but less attention has been paid to the promoters involved in the fruit development stage. In this study, we characterized the gene expression patterns of tomato alcohol dehydrogenase 2 (SlAdh2) in various tissues of wild-type tomato (cv. Ailsa Craig). Our findings revealed that SlAdh2 expression levels were higher in the developing fruit than in the leaves, stems, and flowers. The ProSlAdh2 region, which is expressed at different stages of fruit development, was isolated from tomato genomic DNA. Following this, it was fused with a β-glucuronidase reporter gene (GUS) and introduced into wild-type tomato using Agrobacterium-mediated transformation to evaluate promoter activity in the various tissues of transgenic tomato. The ProSlAdh2:GUS promoter exhibited strong activity in the fruit and weak activity in the stems, but displayed undetectable activity in the leaves and flowers. Interestingly, the promoter was active from the appearance of the green fruit (1 cm in size) to the well-ripened stage in transgenic tomatoes, indicating its suitability for transgene expression during fruit development and ripening. Thus, our findings suggest that ProSlAdh2 may serve as a potential fruit-specific promoter for genetic-based improvement of tomato fruit quality.