ArticleThe New phytologist2021
Bitter and sweet make tomato hard to (b)eat.
Article in The New phytologist, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 63 citations in OpenAlex.
- The penta-EF-hand protein Pef1 of Candida albicans functions at sites of membrane perturbation to support polarized growth and membrane integrity.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Article
- The Role of Two Glycoalkaloid Metabolism Genes in α-Tomatine Biosynthesis and Basal Defence in Tomato.Molecular plant pathology · 2026Article
- Engineering carotenoid and steroidal glycoalkaloid depleted tomato fruit for heterologous production of high value terpenes.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Rewiring Steroidal Metabolic Pathways for Diosgenin Production in Solanum nigrum.Plant biotechnology journal · 2026Article
- Dynamic Characterization of Antioxidant-Related, Non-Volatile, and Volatile Metabolite Profiles of Cherry Tomato During Ripening.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Alkaloids as mediators in plant-microbe interactions: Metabolism and role in the rhizosphere.Plant biotechnology (Tokyo, Japan) · 2025Article
- Ontogeny and organ-specific steroidal glycoside diversity is associated with differential expression of steroidal glycoside pathway genes in two Solanum dulcamara leaf chemotypes.Plant biology (Stuttgart, Germany) · 2025Article
- Molecular Characterisation of the Peroxidase Gene Family in Botrytis cinerea and the Role of BcPRD7 in Virulence.Molecular plant pathology · 2025Article
- Removal of toxic steroidal glycoalkaloids and bitterness in tomato is controlled by a complex epigenetic and genetic network.Science advances · 2025Article
- Intra-canopy LED lighting outperformed top LED lighting in improving tomato yield and expression of the genes responsible for lycopene, phytoene and vitamin C synthesis.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Botrytis cinerea combines four molecular strategies to tolerate membrane-permeating plant compounds and to increase virulence.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Modelling metabolic fluxes of tomato stems reveals that nitrogen shapes central metabolism for defence against Botrytis cinerea.Journal of experimental botany · 2024Article
- α-Tomatine gradient across artificial roots recreates the recruitment of tomato root-associatedPlant direct · 2023Article
- Article
- A Comprehensive Evaluation of Tomato Fruit Quality and Identification of Volatile Compounds.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Botrytis cinerea infection accelerates ripening and cell wall disassembly to promote disease in tomato fruit.Plant physiology · 2023Article
- Editorial: Highlights from the Botrytis and Sclerotinia 2022 Joint Conference.Frontiers in plant science · 2023Article
- Transcriptomic, metabolomic, and ATAC-seq analysis reveal the regulatory mechanism of senescence of post-harvest tomato fruit.Frontiers in plant science · 2023Article
- Stressing the importance of plant specialized metabolites: omics-based approaches for discovering specialized metabolism in plant stress responses.Frontiers in plant science · 2023Review
- Genome assembly of Musa beccarii shows extensive chromosomal rearrangements and genome expansion during evolution of Musaceae genomes.GigaScience · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The glycoalkaloid saponin α-tomatine is a tomato-specific secondary metabolite that accumulates to millimolar levels in vegetative tissues and has antimicrobial and antinutritional activity that kills microbial pathogens and deters herbivorous insects. We describe recent insights into the biosynthetic pathway of α-tomatine synthesis and its regulation. We discuss the mode of action of α-tomatine by physically interacting with sterols, thereby disrupting membranes, and how tomato protects itself from its toxic action. Tomato pathogenic microbes can enzymatically hydrolyze, and thereby inactivate, α-tomatine using either of three distinct types of glycosyl hydrolases. We also describe findings that extend well beyond the simple concept of plants producing toxins and pathogens inactivating them. There are reports that toxicity of α-tomatine is modulated by external pH, that α-tomatine can trigger programmed cell death in fungi, that cellular localization matters for the impact of α-tomatine on invading microbes, and that α-tomatine breakdown products generated by microbial hydrolytic enzymes can modulate plant immune responses. Finally, we address a number of outstanding questions that deserve attention in the future.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.