University of Florida, Horticultural Sciences, P.O. Box 110690, Gainesville, FL 32611-0690, USA.
Trends Genet. 2013 Apr;29(4):257-62. doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2012.12.003. Epub 2013 Jan 14.
In many instances, the intensive breeding of crops over the past half century with a focus on yield has indirectly led to reductions in flavor and nutrient content. Largely, this deterioration of quality relates directly to the genetic and biochemical complexity of such traits. Here, we describe challenges associated with quality improvement, emphasizing tomato fruit flavor. Flavor improvement is particularly problematic because of the difficulty of assessing the phenotype as well as a lack of fundamental knowledge about the chemicals driving consumer preferences, the pathways for their synthesis, and the genes regulating the output of these pathways. Recent breakthroughs from a systematic analysis of these factors and the availability of a tomato genome sequence have led to significant progress in our understanding of flavor. However, the need to deliver improved flavor in the context of high yield and long postharvest shelf life still present major challenges.
在过去的半个世纪里，为了提高作物产量，对其进行了密集的培育，这在很多情况下间接导致了其风味和营养成分的减少。这种品质的恶化在很大程度上直接与这些特性的遗传和生化复杂性有关。在这里，我们描述了与品质改良相关的挑战，重点是番茄果实的风味。由于评估表型的困难以及对驱动消费者偏好的化学物质、它们合成途径的基础知识以及调节这些途径产物的基因缺乏了解，因此风味的改善尤其成问题。对这些因素的系统分析以及番茄基因组序列的可用性带来的最新突破，使我们对风味的理解取得了重大进展。然而，在高产和长货架期的背景下，需要提供改良的风味，这仍然是一个重大挑战。
