Modificazione della via biosintetica dei flavonoidi in pomodoro e valutazione delle proprietà salutistiche dei nuovi alimenti funzionali
Author(s)
Scarano, Aurelia
Date Issued
June 6, 2017
Type
Doctoral Thesis
Abstract
Polyphenols are plant secondary metabolites that include several classes of compounds, like
flavonoids, anthocyanins, stilbenes, and have shown antioxidant and anti-inflammatory
properties. In recent years, the interest for the increase of polyphenol content in plant-derived
foods by using metabolic engineering strategies is growing. Tomato is a good candidate for such
improvement, since it accumulates low levels of polyphenols only in the skin.
The aim of this work has been the development of new polyphenol-enriched tomato lines by
metabolic engineering on the flavonoid biosynthetic pathway and their biological assessment on
an intestinal inflammation (IBD) mouse model. Among the several tomato-enriched diets tested,
only the ‘Bronze’ diet, characterized by the presence of flavonols, anthocyanins and stilbenes,
was effective in the reduction of the inflammatory symptoms of IBD.
Moreover, it was evaluated the potential use of the CRISPR-Cas9 system of gene editing to insert
the fruit-specific E8 promoter upstream the endogenous tomato sequence of MYB12, regulatory
gene of the flavonoid pathway, alternatively to MYB12 from Arabidopsis that was employed in
the previously tested tomato lines.
This work indicates that this multidisciplinary approach provides a great opportunity to assess
the health-promoting effects of polyphenols in the whole-food context thus revealing their
synergistic actions in providing prevention against IBD.
Additional information
Dottorato di ricerca in Scienze delle produzioni vegetali e animali
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