Researchers from Nagoya University reported that they have successfully developed sweeter tomatoes using gene-editing technology. The results are published in Scientific Reports.
High-sugar content tomatoes are usually expensive in the market because of the extensive process needed to achieve the sweetness, which also reduces the size of the fruits. With gene editing, consumers would have more access to sweeter tomatoes.
The team focused on modifying an invertase inhibitor, a gene involved in the process of sweetening tomatoes. They were able to accumulate more sugars in the fruit when breaking the inhibitor through gene-editing technology. This led to a sugar content increase of about 30 percent more than usual, without an effect on the fruit size.
(Source: Crop Biotech Update, International Service for Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications. www.isaaa.org)
