Scientists Break New Ground With Vitamin A-Enriched Tomato

University of Florida scientists have developed a tomato packed with significantly higher levels of beta-carotene, a breakthrough that could help combat one of the world’s most widespread nutritional deficiencies.

In newly published research, UF/IFAS researchers Jingwei Fu, Denise Tieman, and Bala Rathinasabapathi introduce fortified tomatoes with boosted beta-carotene, the compound the body converts to vitamin A.

Vitamin A deficiency, which impairs growth, red blood cell production, immunity and eyesight, affects 345 million people across 79 countries. Children and pregnant women in impoverished societies are particularly vulnerable. Daily consumption of 50 to 100 grams of these tomatoes can efficiently address vitamin A deficiency.

“The levels of beta-carotene found in the improved tomatoes are more than those found in market tomatoes and in many beta-carotene-rich foods like kale and sweet potatoes,” says Rathinasabapathi, a UF/IFAS Professor.

Fu, who conducted the research as a doctoral student under Rathinasabapathi’s direction – and is now a post-doctoral assistant in the same lab — introduced CCS, a gene from the carotenoid synthetic pathway from peppers into tomatoes to increase beta-carotene. The researchers chose the tomato because it’s one of the world’s most popular vegetables, with annual production of 180 million tons worldwide.

Their research showed that the pepper gene worked to improve tomatoes’ nutritional value when it was transferred to different varieties of tomatoes.

To understand the function of a gene in peppers, scientists first turned off CCS, a gene involved in the synthesis of capsanthin and capsorubin, two pigments in red peppers.

“The pigments are good for people because they are excellent antioxidants, like the color you see in sweet potatoes or carrots,” Rathinasabapathi adds. “After identifying the gene from that experiment, we expressed it in a tomato variety. The resulting plant had orange tomatoes — instead of red. The improved tomato had increased levels of pigments capsanthin, capsorubin, and beta-carotene. This made the new tomato nutritionally valuable.”

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In the next part of the study, researchers developed hybrid tomatoes by crossing selected varieties and the newly developed orange tomato. The resulting hybrids were nutritionally much more valuable in terms of beta-carotene, capsanthin and capsorubin levels than the originally developed tomato.

The fruit of these hybrids are also larger than the original varieties. In controlled experiments, the orange tomato yielded more fruit and had improved flavor volatile profiles when compared to fruit of unmodified controls.

For more research work on a vitamin A-enriched tomato, continue reading at blogs.ifas.ufl.edu.