CRISPR-Adventskalender

The fruit color of a tomato has a strong influence on consumer purchasing behavior. Consumers in different regions of the world have different color preferences. For example, European and American consumers prefer red tomatoes, while pink tomatoes are very popular in Asian countries, especially in China and Japan. However, most breeding lines have red flesh, rendering the conventional breeding of pink lines for Asian tomato production a very costly endeavor. Chinese scientists have succeeded in eliminating a gene responsible for fruit color using CRISPR/Cas which has allowed them to produce pink tomatoes.