Tomatoes as new medicine

The future of phytochemicals production could be in the greenhouse. German and British scientists have found a way to produce larger amounts of botanical ingredients with medicinal benefits from tomatoes. Their work was recently published in the journal Nature Communications.
They first tested the process on the substances resveratrol and genistein, which occur in grapes or soybeans. The polyphenol resveratrol showed life-prolonging effects in several animal studies. The soy component Genistein belongs to the so-called phytoestrogens. It binds to the human estrogen receptor and inhibits tumor growth in hormone-sensitive cancers such. Breast cancer. The content in grapes or soybeans, however, is low in both cases and the recovery, such as for pharmacological investigations, cumbersome.

Tomatoes with important ingredients. Picture: Nitr - fotolia

There were already genetically engineered tomato varieties that can produce the corresponding substances. However, the yield was too low for effective recovery. That changed when the scientists crossed the transcription factor AtMYB12 into the respective varieties. A transcription factor acts like a switch. If it binds to the corresponding region of a gene, the production of the corresponding gene product is started or stopped.

As the scientists have shown, AtMYB12 increases the production of so-called aromatic amino acids, which serve as precursors for many phytochemicals, u. a. also polyphenols and phytoestrogens. In addition, the basic building blocks of these amino acids are increasingly produced. With the resveratrol, the yield increased tenfold in this way. Genistein content even increased by a factor of 260. In both cases, the tomato content was more than a hundred times higher than in grapes or soy products. The results suggest that other phytochemicals from aromatic amino acids can be produced in tomatoes in the same way.

If confirmed, the process has the potential to revolutionize the production of phytochemicals. Tomatoes are among the most productive crops and are widely cultivated worldwide. The enriched substances can be easily recovered after squeezing out of the juice. This is much easier than laboriously gaining in the lab or from the original plants. (Dr. Margit Ritzka, aid)