Genetic sleuths unmask secrets of big tomatoes

by stvalentine | May 12, 2008 at 04:46 am

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"Humans began domesticating plants in the last roughly10,000 years. They had no knowledge of genetics and noknowledge of breeding, but somehow they rendered these changesgenetically on plants," Tanksley, plant geneticist of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, said

The secret behind growing largetomatoes lies not in the fertilizer or the perfect soilconditions, but in just a few genetic changes that over timehave resulted in tomatoes 1,000 times bigger than their wildancestors, U.S. researchers said
Tanksley focused on the genetic changes that give rise to alarge number of compartments or locules inside the tomato, aplant that originated in the Americas.
"If you take a beefsteak tomato from the supermarket andcut it open inside you'll see these compartments in there thathave wells between them. They may have anywhere from 10 to 20of these compartments," said Tanksley, whose research appearsin the journal Nature Genetics.

A true wild tomato may have only two to four of these.

"Somehow, something made the plant start making thesecompartments, and by making more compartments, you can getlarger fruit."