One contains 50 times the amount of the antioxidant resveratrol as a bottle of wine.
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Resveratrol, which is found in red grapes and also peanuts and berries, is believed to protect the heart and circulatory system and lower cholesterol.
By introducing a protein called AtMYB12, which is normally found in a garden weed called thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana), scientists found that the protein activates a wide set of genes responsible for natural compound production in the tomato plant. Genistein, a substance found in soyabean, is under investigation for its role in preventing breast cancer and other cancers related to steroid hormones.
“Our study provides a general tool for producing valuable phenylpropanoid compounds on an industrial scale in plants”, Martin said in a release issued by the JIC. The researchers have been able to produce a tomato that has the equivalent amount of Resveratrol as fifty bottles of red wine. The same procedure could in the future be used to mass produce other natural occurring compounds that are the basis of many medications.
While under the influence of the protein, the tomato plants started producing higher amounts of both phenylpropanoids and flavanoids, and devoted more energy to doing to. Phenylpropanoids are a family or organic compounds that increase the range of plant chemicals.
When you consider that tomatoes are a very high yielding crop, producing as much as 500 tonnes per hectare (551 tons per 2.5 acres), the method could be a better alternative to lab-based artificial synthesis. Next, the authors encoded enzymes used to produce Resveratrol in grape and Genistein in legumes, thus creating tomatoes capable of producing up to as 80mg of novel compound per gram of dry weight. Target compounds could be purified directly from tomato juice.
The tomatoes can be harvested and juiced, and the valuable compounds can be extracted from the juice. “Our work will be of interest in different research areas including fundamental research on plants, plant/microbe engineering, medicinal plant natural products, as well as diet and health research”.
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While European Union food rules forbid the super tomatoes from being eaten, the John Innes researchers hope that their findings will allow for the development of more cost-effective ways of producing medicinal compounds in future. The researchers believe their design can be applied to other compounds such as alkaloids and terpenoids.
