A SCAR Marker Linked to RIPENING-INHIBITOR in Tomato.

Tomato shelf-life is important for its fresh market usage especially for exporting and transporting tomato in tropical climate. To increase the shelf-life, delaying maturity is one of the powerful methods. A ripening gene related to the fruit maturity delaying was previously known through tomato mutation. RIPENING-INHIBITOR (Rin) from the recessive mutation effectively blocks the ripening process, and when the hybrid (Rin/rin) was formed it shows slow-ripening and long shelf-life. Since breeders need the long shelf-life character in the tomato breeding program, we had set out a series of experiments to develop a Rin related DNA marker. We searched for the proper primer sequences in the deletion region between Rin and rin mRNA sequences, and also in the intron region of rin. Primers that simultaneously amplified two bands with a co-dominant pattern were selected and converted to the Sequence Characterized Amplified Region (SCAR) marker. As a preliminary data, the SCAR marker clearly distinguished genotypes between heterozygote (Rin/rin) and homozygote (Rin/Rin, rin/rin), and this would help select the tomato lines that have a characteristic of long shelf-life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]