Gene governing tomato's colour, taste decoded

It's always delightful to watch and eat those perfect, red tomatoes decorated beautifully on different shelves of the vegetable vendors shop. But a recent research has decoded a specific gene in tomato that governs the level of sugar, carbohydrates and carotenoids in the fruit.

A group of researchers at Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell University, the US Department of Agriculture and the University of California-Davis decoded a specific gene present in the vegetable that regulates the level of sugar, carbohydrates and carotenoids in tomatoes.

In addition to that, the gene also influence the ripening of the fruit and is pre dominantly used by the breeders for commercial purpose to grow perfectly red, store-ready fruit, the journal Science reported.

"Practically, it is a very important trait," said James Giovannoni, plant molecular biologist, senior study co-author, according to a university statement.

"It's a gene that whether you realize it or not, most of your tomatoes have," added Giovannoni. However, this same trait reduces sugars and nutrients in the fruit.

This discovery has practical applications. The commercial producers uses the practical application of the discovery to produce uniform red fruit of tomato in multi-coloured and multi-flavour. This can be done simply by doing an early test on seedling DNA for the uniform ripening mutation, rather than waiting to observe the mature fruit.

In contrary to that if you are not worried about the looks of the plant and fruits than the mutation free plants may have better-tasting fruit.

-With inputs from IANS