Chinese scientists edited the tomato genome to make the fruit sweeter

Scientists from the Chinese Academy of Agriculture showed that after removing two genes from the tomato genome, the level of glucose and fructose in the fruit increased by 30% compared to normal fruit. This work was published in the journal Nature. This is reported by Newsru.co.il. Christophe Rotan, a biologist at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research in Paris, believes the research opens up "the possibility of exploiting the enormous genetic diversity that exists in wild species, which has been partially lost in domesticated varieties." More than 186 million tons of tomatoes are produced annually in the world, which makes this fruit one of the most valuable garden crops in the world. Like other crops, tomatoes were domesticated by selection for traits that reflect human preferences: primarily fruit size. Today, domesticated tomatoes are on average 100 times larger than their wild ancestors. This contributes to an increase in the mass of fruits on each plant and ...