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A rare fruit could end up in American stores in the near future after scientists have spliced its DNA to make it richer and more efficient. This is what is called cherry and its success could result in the modification of more rare fruits and vegetables.
Present in Central and South America, the nursery grows in peel like a tomatillo but tastes a little pineapple. From time to time found on farmers' markets, it is known as an "orphan crop," a plant too capricious for mass production.
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On the one hand, the fruits of the earth often fall to the ground even before they are ripe, hence the name, according to CNN, and its difficult to handle plant. But researchers at New York's Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, knowing the genes that favor tomato plants, have altered the cherry's DNA to produce a plant that is both larger and more fruitful.
To do this, they used CRISPR, a gene editing tool also used to produce low-fat pigs and to reprogram cells for the treatment of cancer.
By reducing the hormones associated with the flowering of the plant, scientists have made the plant more compact and its fruit more abundant: the mutated ground cherry has produced up to 50% more fruit than the natural version. They also intensified the dilapidated sections of the fruit, increasing its size by 24%.
The result: a fruit that grows more easily and more often. Scientists now want to play with the color and taste of ground cherry in an effort to make fruit rich in protein and fiber more enjoyable for consumers, CNN reported.
The team of scientists detailed its process in a study published Monday in Nature Plants.
And with such effective gene modifications, scientists believe that they could improve fruits and vegetables that are rare and unknown to the masses.
"It's a good proof that with gene editing, you can consider introducing other wild plants or orphan crops into agricultural production," Zachary said. Lippman, plant biologist at the laboratory, in a statement.
"The more arrows we have in our quivers to meet the needs of agriculture in the future, the better we will be."
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