The metabolic shifts underlying tomato fruit development

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) became a model crop species to study development and maturation of fleshy fruits. The network of information and resources recently established by the International Solanaceae Genome Project (SOL www.sgn.cornell.edu) will not only provide valuable sequence information but also new tools applicable to large scale profiles at different levels of cell organization. This will surely render to the discovery of new potential targets for manipulation of fruit compositional traits. To date, a large amount of knowledge has been gathered on ethylene biosynthesis and response and cell wall metabolism during tomato fruit development and ripening. Less attention, however, has been given to the central metabolism that underpins these responses. Here we review recent reports focussed on the identification of key points on the metabolic regulation underlying tomato fruit development. Additionally, an overview of the combined application of metabolic and transcriptional profiling, aimed at identifying candidate genes for modifying metabolite contents, is discussed in the context of the usefulness for tomato breeding programs.