Transgenic SunUp Papaya Genome

Filed in archive Food and Agriculture , Genomics, Proteomics and Bioinformatics on April 24, 2008

This week's issue of Nature features the draft genome of the transgenic 'SunUp' Papaya, the first commercial virus-resistant transgenic fruit tree to be sequenced. From Nature News:

The papaya genome will be of interest to scientists interested in the dietary benefits of different fruits, the evolution of fruiting trees, and other basic questions of biology. Data from the genome will also help in designing field-based assays to differentiate hermaphroditic plants from female ones - a task that currently takes farmers three to four months of cultivation to achieve. Farmers prefer the hermaphroditic plants for easier pollination.

In addition to insights regarding its evolutionary path, the genome analysis also revealed that papaya has fewer functional genes than any other flowering plant already sequenced, but contains more genes for enzymes involved in cell-wall expansion, starch production and for production of volatile compounds.

Read more from the University of Illinois report.