To reduce agriculture’s dependence on chemical fertilizers, interest in new types of fertilizers is growing. Essential compounds are promising growth promoters. Gamma-valactone, a volatile organic compound produced by *S. stearothermiae* NRCB010, has been shown to promote tomato seedling growth under sterile conditions. Therefore, we investigated the effects of varying concentrations of gamma-valactone on tomato seedling growth under hydroponic and greenhouse conditions, and also examined the corresponding changes in transcription and hormone levels. The results showed that gamma-valactone treatment significantly promoted tomato seedling growth, with optimal concentrations of 100 mg/L and 250 mg/L under hydroponic and greenhouse conditions, respectively. The contents of IAA-aspartic acid, IAA-glutamic acid, indole-3-acetamide, indole-3-acetonitrile, indole-3-butyric acid, and gibberellin in leaves, stems, and roots increased significantly. Transcriptome analysis revealed that after 6 hours of γ-valerolactone treatment, the number of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) with increased expression exceeded the number of genes with decreased expression; however, the opposite situation was observed after 24 hours of treatment. γ-valerolactone can promote tomato seedling growth through mechanisms such as photosynthesis, plant hormone signaling, and secondary metabolite biosynthesis. This study provides a theoretical basis for the application of γ-valerolactone as a novel plant growth regulator and lays the foundation for the development of highly effective and environmentally friendly agricultural biostimulants.
Morphological, transcriptomic and hormonal analyses showed that γ-valerolactone improves the growth of tomato seedlings and increases hormone levels.
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We express our sincere gratitude to the High Performance Computing Center of Nanjing University of Technology for providing us with computing resources.
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32172673 and 31972503) and the Project of the Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Platform of Nanjing University of Technology (2025DC0047, 2025DC1680, 2025DC1682).
Department of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Nanjing University of Technology, Nanjing 211816, China
Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Environment Monitoring and Pollution Control, Collaborative Innovation Center for Atmospheric Environment and Equipment Technology, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
Conceptualization, Shanshan Li; Data curation: Xiyue Sha, Shanshan Li, Hui Shen; Formal analysis, Fangfang Ren and Xin Tao; Funding acquisition: Nan Gao, Weiye Chen, Xiyue Sha, and Zhuorui Li; Methodology, Fangfang Ren and Weiye Chen; Project administration, Nan Gao; Writing – original draft, Fangfang Ren and Hui Shen; Writing, review, and editing: Weishou Shen, Hui Shen, and Nan Gao.
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Post time: Aug-18-2026
