Plastid Transformation in Tomato: A Vegetable Crop and Model Species

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.), a member of the nightshade family (Solanaceae), is one of the most important vegetable crops and has long been an important model species in plant biology. Plastid biology in tomato is especially interesting due to the chloroplast-to-chromoplast conversion occurring during fruit ripening. Moreover, as tomato represents a major food crop with a fleshy fruit that can be eaten raw, the development of a plastid transformation protocol for tomato was of particular interest to plant biotechnologists. Recent methodological improvements have made tomato plastid transformation more efficient, and facilitated applications in metabolic engineering and molecular farming. This chapter describes the basic methods involved in the generation and analysis of tomato plants with transgenic chloroplast genomes and summarizes recent applications of tomato plastid transformation in plant biotechnology.