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Gene Editing Could be Used to Create Spicy Tomatoes

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday January 08 2019, @02:07PM   
from the zesty-sauce dept.

takyon writes:

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)

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Original Submission

• Just remember Just remember (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:12PM (1 child)

  by fyngyrz (6567) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:12PM (#783742) Journal

  Jesus likes to curse fruit trees. [wikipedia.org] He just didn't give a fig about them.

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• Re:Just remember (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:50PM

  by HiThere (866) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:50PM (#783765) Journal

  That's a very interesting story to remember. I always remember that it happened in the early spring, and to blame a fruit tree for not carrying fruit in the early spring is rather foolish. (Perhaps the fig trees as far south as Israel have a different idea of the weather, however. A quick google yields:

  Jun 19, 2013

  Israeli Summer fig season under way. A month and a half into the Summer fig season in Israel and almost all Summer varieties are available for export. The season began in late-April and is expected to continue through August.

  though, so I don't think so. But perhaps there's a spring fig season. And also, Passover was in late April the year that's supposed to have happened...so maybe it's more reasonable that it seems based on local figs.)

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