Determination of silicon uptake in Lsi-1 (putative) silenced tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) plants using CRISPR/Cas9

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is the second most consumed vegetable worldwide after potato and very important input for the food industry. Abiotic stresses such as salinity and drought affect the life cycles of tomato, which results in yield losses. The beneficial effects of silicon to overcome these stresses and the silicon transport mechanisms in rice, barley, maize and some other crops have been illuminated. However, there is a limited number of reports in the literature about the silicon uptake mechanism in tomato. In the present research, SlLsi1, which was demonstrated in silico as one of the genes functioning in silicon uptake in tomato, was silenced using CRISPR/Cas9 system. The analyses on the T1 plants revealed that the CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genetic modifications were inherited to the progeny. The physiologic and transcriptomic analyses proved that SlLsi1 was responsible in silicon uptake in tomato, but insufficient number of T1 plants with high chimerism rate were obtained.