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Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) belongs to the Solanaceae family and is the second most important fruit or vegetable crop next to potato (Solanum tuberosum L.). It is cultivated for fresh fruit and processed products. Tomatoes contain many health-promoting compounds including vitamins, carotenoids, and phenolic compounds. In addition to its economic and nutritional importance, tomatoes have become the model for the study of fleshy fruit development. Tomato is a climacteric fruit and dramatic metabolic changes occur during its fruit development. In this review, we provide an overview of our current understanding of tomato fruit metabolism. We begin by detailing the genetic and hormonal control of fruit development and ripening, after which we document the primary metabolism of tomato fruits, with a special focus on sugar, organic acid, and amino acid metabolism. Links between primary and secondary metabolic pathways are further highlighted by the importance of pigments, flavonoids, and volatiles for tomato fruit quality. Finally, as tomato plants are sensitive to several abiotic stresses, we briefly summarize the effects of adverse environmental conditions on tomato fruit metabolism and quality.

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) belongs to the Solanaceae family and is the second most important fruit or vegetable crop next to potato (Solanum tuberosum L.). It is cultivated for fresh fruit and processed products. Tomatoes contain many health-promoting compounds including vitamins, carotenoids, and phenolic compounds. In addition to its economic and nutritional importance, tomatoes have become the model for the study of fleshy fruit development. Tomato is a climacteric fruit and dramatic metabolic changes occur during its fruit development. In this review, we provide an overview of our current understanding of tomato fruit metabolism. We begin by detailing the genetic and hormonal control of fruit development and ripening, after which we document the primary metabolism of tomato fruits, with a special focus on sugar, organic acid, and amino acid metabolism. Links between primary and secondary metabolic pathways are further highlighted by the importance of pigments, flavonoids, and volatiles for tomato fruit quality. Finally, as tomato plants are sensitive to several abiotic stresses, we briefly summarize the effects of adverse environmental conditions on tomato fruit metabolism and quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fruit-pathogen interactions are a valuable biological system to study the role of plant development in the transition from resistance to susceptibility. In general, unripe fruit are resistant to pathogen infection but become increasingly more susceptible as they ripen. During ripening, fruit undergo significant physiological and biochemical changes that are coordinated by complex regulatory and hormonal signaling networks. The interplay between multiple plant stress hormones in the interaction between plant vegetative tissues and microbial pathogens has been documented extensively, but the relevance of these hormones during infections of fruit is unclear. In this work, we analyzed a transcriptome study of tomato fruit infected with Botrytis cinerea in order to profile the expression of genes for the biosynthesis, modification and signal transduction of ethylene (ET), salicylic acid (SA), jasmonic acid (JA), and abscisic acid (ABA), hormones that may be not only involved in ripening, but also in fruit interactions with pathogens. The changes in relative expression of key genes during infection and assays of susceptibility of fruit with impaired synthesis or perception of these hormones were used to formulate hypotheses regarding the involvement of these regulators in the outcome of the tomato fruit-B. cinerea interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]