Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40328814›Full record

ArticleNature communications2025

A feedback loop at the THERMOSENSITIVE PARTHENOCARPY 4 locus controls tomato fruit set under heat stress.

Xiaonan Lu, Jianxin Wu, QianQian Shi, Shuai Sun, Yuan Cheng, Guozhi Zhou, Ren Li, Huanzhong Wang, Esther van der Knaap, Xia Cui

Abstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
5citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

5 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

10 authors.

Xiaonan Lu *State Key Laboratory of Vegetable Biobreeding, Sino-Dutch Joint Laboratory of Horticultural Genomics, Institute of Vegetables and Flowers, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China.
Jianxin Wu *State Key Laboratory of Vegetable Biobreeding, Sino-Dutch Joint Laboratory of Horticultural Genomics, Institute of Vegetables and Flowers, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China.
QianQian ShiState Key Laboratory of Vegetable Biobreeding, Sino-Dutch Joint Laboratory of Horticultural Genomics, Institute of Vegetables and Flowers, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China.
Shuai SunState Key Laboratory of Vegetable Biobreeding, Sino-Dutch Joint Laboratory of Horticultural Genomics, Institute of Vegetables and Flowers, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China.
Yuan ChengState Key Laboratory for Managing Biotic and Chemical Threats to the Quality and Safety of Agro-Products, Institute of Vegetables, Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou, 310021, China.
Guozhi ZhouState Key Laboratory for Managing Biotic and Chemical Threats to the Quality and Safety of Agro-Products, Institute of Vegetables, Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou, 310021, China.
Ren LiState Key Laboratory of Vegetable Biobreeding, Sino-Dutch Joint Laboratory of Horticultural Genomics, Institute of Vegetables and Flowers, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China.
Huanzhong WangDepartment of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, 06269, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9004-3420
Esther van der KnaapDepartment of Horticulture and Institute of Plant Breeding, Genetics & Genomics University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 30602, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4963-7427
Xia CuiState Key Laboratory of Vegetable Biobreeding, Sino-Dutch Joint Laboratory of Horticultural Genomics, Institute of Vegetables and Flowers, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China. cuixia@caas.cn.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1415-0865

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

High temperatures compromise crop productivity worldwide, but breeding bottlenecks slow the delivery of climate-resilient crops. By investigating tomato fruit set under high temperatures, we discover a module comprising two linked genes, THERMOSENSITIVE PARTHENOCARPY 4a (TSP4a) and TSP4b, which encode the transcriptional regulators IAA9 and AINTEGUMENTA (ANT), respectively, to control thermosensitive parthenocarpy. TSP4a and TSP4b form a positive feedback loop upon heat stress to repress auxin signaling in ovaries. Natural TSP4a and TSP4b alleles bear regulatory-region polymorphisms and are differentially expressed to overcome the trade-off between fruit set and wider plant development. Gene editing of the TSP4a promoter and TSP4b 3' UTR in open-chromatin regions results in expression down-regulation, increased parthenocarpy without yield penalties and maintenance of fruit-sugar levels without broad auxin-related pleiotropic defects in greenhouse-grown plants. These mechanistic insights into heat-induced parthenocarpy and auxin signaling in reproductive organs demonstrate breeding utility to safeguard tomato yield under warming scenarios.

Indexed as

FruitHeat-Shock ResponsePlant ProteinsSolanum lycopersicumFeedback, PhysiologicalGene EditingGene Expression Regulation, PlantHot TemperatureIndoleacetic AcidsPromoter Regions, GeneticSignal TransductionTranscription FactorsIndoleacetic AcidsPlant ProteinsTranscription Factors

Identifiers

PMID40328814
PMCPMC12056112

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Registered trials

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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.