Scientists claim they have produced ‘super tomatoes’ packed with disease-fighting compounds.
Researchers at the Norfolk-based John Innes Centre said they can boost the amount of natural medicinal compounds in tomatoes by introducing a plant protein called AtMYB12, found in garden weeds.
They produced one tomato with the same quantity of resveratrol - a compound found in grapes and berries which has been reported to extend lifespan in animal studies - as 50 bottles of red wine. Another contained the same amount of the compound genistein, which has been suggested may help prevent breast cancer, as 2.5kg of tofu.
Dr Yang Zhang and Dr Eugenio Butelli, who led the project, said producing medicinal compounds in tomatoes, which are a high yielding, low input crop, is much cheaper than artificial synthesis in a lab.
The tomatoes could be juiced to extract the compounds, but the scientists claimed there was also scope for the fruit to become a direct “source of increased nutritional or medicinal benefit”.
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