While some people might not find it as enjoyable as drinking copious amounts of wine for the sake of longevity and good health, scientists from the UK’s John Innes Centre have learned how to mass produce the beneficial compounds of the alcoholic beverage in tomatoes.
The compounds in question are phenylpropanoids such as Resveratrol, which has been found to increase the lifespan of creatures in animal studies, and Genistein, which is found in soybean and is said to help prevent steroid-hormone related cancers.
Now, Drs. Yang Zhang and Eugenio Butelli reported in the latest edition of the journal Nature Communications that that they were able to create tomatoes containing as much Resveratrol as 50 bottles of red wine, and as much Genistein as is found in 2.5 kilograms of tofu.
The key to their discovery is a protein known as AtMYB12, which can be found in Arabidopsis thaliana, a common plant in the UK. The protein activates genes in the metabolic pathways that produce natural compounds and can increase or decrease production as needed by a plant.
Nutrients extracted after juicing the tomatoes
Drs. Zhang and Butelli, who completed their work in the lab of Professor Cathie Martin, found that by introducing AtMYB12 into a tomato plant, the plant’s ability to make natural compounds and activate phenylpropanoid production increased. It also influenced the amount of carbon and energy that the plant dedicated to producing these particular substances.
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. 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.
Since tomatoes produce yields of up to 500 metric tons per hectare, this technique could allow valuable compounds such as these to be mass produced more economically than methods which require artificial synthesis in the labs, the researchers said. Once grown, the modified tomatoes could be harvested and juiced, then the key nutrients could be extracted from that juice.
“Our research provides a fantastic platform to quickly produce these valuable medicinal compounds in tomatoes,” Dr. Zang said. “Target compounds could be purified directly from tomato juice. We believe our design idea could also be applied to other compounds such as terpenoids and alkaloids, which are the major groups of medicinal compounds from plants.”
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Feature Image: Thinkstock
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