A flavor face-lift for supermarket tomatoes

Abstract

Folks who are familiar with the delicious flavor and texture of a freshly picked, vine-ripened tomato often feel betrayed by the hard, bland, red orbs sold in many supermarket produce aisles. But a tomato flavor revival may be in store thanks to a group of researchers led by the University of Florida’s Harry Klee. The scientists sequenced the genome of 398 wild, heirloom, and supermarket tomato varieties. With the help of human taste panelists, they then identified the 28 most pleasurable tomato flavor and odor chemicals, including leafy geranylacetone, floral β-ionone, and citrusy 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one. Most supermarket tomatoes have much lower levels of 13 of these appealing molecules than heirloom varieties have, Klee says (Science 2017, DOI: 10.1126/science.aal1556). To figure out which regions of the tomato genome are responsible for the biosynthesis of these desirable compounds, the team turned to tomato varieties that make them at high levels. The work provides