The researchers found genes associated with the taste of tomatoes.

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, May 14 (Xinhua)
a lot of
tomatoes are not very tasteful, not very delicious? An international team of researchers from the
USDA
Agricultural Research Bureau,
China
Academy of Agricultural Sciences and others has recently discovered
gene
associated with tomato taste, which is expected to help grow better-flavoured tomato varieties.
researchers, writing in the new issue of nature genetics, said they sequenced the genomes of 725 cultivated and wild tomato varieties and found that a gene called TomLoxC was important for tomato taste.
previous sequencing of tomato genomes was only for a small number of plants and could not reflect differences between different varieties. The latest study includes a "pan-genome" of multiple species information that can more fully reflect the genomic composition of a species and help researchers efficiently select varieties that combine flavor and economic value.
team's tomato "pan-genome" contained 4,873 previously undested genes. It can be seen that in the process of tomato cultivation, variety improvement and so on, there are a large number of gene loss, which shows that modern agriculture in the pursuit of tomato yield, shelf life and disease resistance, etc. , in the process of giving up taste and other characteristics.
study found that among these newly discovered genes, TomLoxC was involved in the production of de-complementary carotenoids, which give tomatoes a good taste and taste. Versions of the TomLoxC gene are rarely found in earlier tomato cultivar species, although it is increasingly appearing in new varieties, reflecting a shift in attitudes among breeding experts.