Transgenic salt-tolerant tomato plants accumulate salt in foliage but not in fruit

Transgenic tomato plants overexpressing a vacuolar Na+/H+ antiport were abl e to grow, flower, and produce fruit in the presence of 200 mM sodium chlor ide. Although the leaves accumulated high sodium concentrations, the tomato fruit displayed very low sodium content. Contrary to the notion that multi ple traits introduced by breeding into crop plants are needed to obtain sal t-tolerant plants, the modification of a single trait significantly improve d the salinity tolerance of this crop plant. These results demonstrate that with a combination of breeding and transgenic plants it could be possible to produce salt-tolerant crops with far fewer target traits than had been a nticipated. The accumulation of sodium in the leaves and not in the fruit d emonstrates the utility of such a modification in preserving the quality of the fruit.