Silencing of Pepper CaFtsH1 or CaFtsH8 Genes Alters Normal Leaf Development.

Filamentation temperature-sensitive H () is a proteolytic enzyme that plays an important role in plant photomorphogenesis and stress resistance. However, information regarding the family genes in pepper is limited. In our research, through genome-wide identification, 18 members of the pepper family (including five members) were identified and renamed based on phylogenetic analysis. and were found to be essential for pepper chloroplast development and photosynthesis because and were lost in Solanaceae diploids. We found that the and proteins were located in the chloroplasts and specifically expressed in pepper green tissues. Meanwhile, and -silenced plants created by virus-induced gene silencing exhibited albino leaf phenotypes. In addition, -silenced plants were observed to contain very few dysplastic chloroplasts and lost the capacity for photoautotrophic growth. Transcriptome analysis revealed that the expression of chloroplast-related genes such as those coding the photosynthesis-antenna protein and structural proteins was downregulated in -silenced plants, resulting in the inability to form normal chloroplasts. This study improves our understanding of pepper chloroplast formation and photosynthesis through the identification and functional study of genes.