Exploring trichome development on tomato surface for natural insect resistance : Molecular characterization of a Lipid Transfer protein

Insects like whitefly are virus-vectors causing substantial crop losses worldwide. They gain resistance to current commercially available pesticides, which are harmful to the environment. Therefore, there is a clear need to integrate sustainable alternatives in crop protection.

Wild tomato species have the capacity to defend themselves by producing a wide variety of natural defense compounds that have a toxic or repellent effect inside trichomes.

Glandular trichomes are hair-like structures on the surface of green tissues of tomato for the synthesis and storage of specialized metabolites that exhibit insecticidal properties.

From the site of synthesis in the plastid and cytosol these natural insecticidal metabolites need to pass barriers including the cell wall and cuticle, to be accumulated in a dedicated storage compartment.

Contrary to the current understanding of insecticidal metabolite biosynthesis, little is known about the development and composition of these glandular trichomes though it appears to differ between cultivated and wild tomato.Non-specific lipid transfer proteins (nsLTPs) are known to transfer hydrophobic molecules (lipids) between membranes in plants.

I hypothesize that a specific tomato LTP gene affects the formation of trichomes through binding of fatty acids and transport of lipids in the cuticle.

I aim to study and discover the molecular mechanisms associated with the role of LTPs in trichome development and gland constitution characterizing LTP mutants (knockout and gland specific overexpression lines).

I will study these mutants in detail at the metabolome, proteome and lipidome level, as well as compare them to a number of wild accessions. In the future this research would have implications in development of insect resistant cultivated tomato cultivars.

This proposal will help me become an independent researcher, combining my background in plant biochemistry with knowledge on molecular biology.