Leaf senescence and plant aging are traits of great interest for breeders. Senescing cells undergo important physiological and biochemical changes, while cellular structures such as chloroplasts are degraded with dramatic metabolic consequences for the whole plant. The possibility of prolonging the photosynthetic ability of leaves could positively impact the plant’s life span with benefits for biomass production and metabolite accumulation; plants with these characteristics display a stay-green phenotype. A group of plant transcription factors known as NAC play a pivotal role in controlling senescence: here we describe the involvement of the tomato NAC transcription factor Solyc12g036480, which transcript is present in leaves and floral buds. Since its silencing delays leaf senescence and prevents plants from ageing, we renamed Solyc12g0364 HḖBĒ, for the Greek goddess of youth. In this manuscript we describe how HEB downregulation negatively affects the progression of senescence, resulting in changes in transcription of senescence-promoting genes, as well as the activity of enzymes involved in chlorophyll degradation, thereby explaining the stay-green phenotype.

叶片衰老和植物衰老是育种者非常感兴趣的特征。感觉细胞发生重要的生理和生化变化，而细胞结构（如叶绿体）则被降解，对整个植物产生严重的代谢后果。延长叶片光合作用的能力可能会积极影响植物的寿命，并有利于生物量的生产和代谢产物的积累；具有这些特征的植物表现出保持绿色的表型。一组称为NAC的植物转录因子在控制衰老中起着关键作用：这里我们描述了番茄NAC转录因子Solyc12g036480的参与，该转录本存在于叶子和花蕾中。由于其沉默可延迟叶片衰老并阻止植物衰老，因此我们将其重新命名为Solyc12g0364HḖBĒ，以表示希腊的青年女神。在本手稿中，我们描述了HEB下调如何对衰老进程产生负面影响，从而导致促衰老基因的转录变化以及参与叶绿素降解的酶的活性，从而解释了保持绿色的表型。