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Gene editing could create spicy tomatoes, say researchers
Spicy tomatoes could soon be on the menu thanks to the rise of genome-editing technology, say researchers. It is not the first time experts have claimed the techniques could help to precisely and rapidly develop fruits and vegetables with unusual traits: scientists have already been looking at changing the colour of kiwi fruits and tweaking the taste of strawberries.
But researchers in Brazil and Ireland say such methods also could offer practical advantages, with spicy tomatoes offering a way of harvesting capsaicinoids, the pungent chemicals found in chilli peppers.
[...] Tomatoes and chilli peppers developed from a common ancestor but diverged about 19m years ago. "All the genes to produce capsaicinoids exist in the tomato, they are just not active," Zsögön said.
Capsaicinoids: Pungency beyond Capsicum (open, DOI: 10.1016/j.tplants.2018.11.001) (DX)
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday January 08 2019, @03:30PM (1 child)
https://www.npr.org/2011/08/26/139972669/the-unsavory-story-of-industrially-grown-tomatoes [npr.org]
If you dislike the tomatoes available to you, it probably has nothing to do with a tomato's genes, and everything to do with artificial ripening using ethylene gas.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Tuesday January 08 2019, @03:43PM
"Sun-ripened" is highly significant when it comes to the ultimate taste of tomatoes. We grow our own, and we experiment with different kinds every growing season; we have never found anything in a store that even comes close to tomatoes that were slow-sun-ripened. This goes for every size from cherry to "wants to be a pumpkin in its next life."
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I'm trying to give up sexual innuendo.
But it's hard.
So hard.