HomeProduct Complimentary download Bitter food but good medicine from cucumbers

Bitter food but good medicine from cucumbers

Keyword:
Publish time: 1st December, 2014      Source: Davis, California, USA
Information collection and data processing:  CCM     For more information, please contact us
Bitter food but good medicine from cucumbersBitter food but good medicine from cucumbers" title="Share this link on Facebook">Davis, California, USADecember 1, 2014High-tech genomics and traditional Chinese medicine come together as researchers identify the genes responsible for the intense bitter taste of wild cucumbers. Taming this bitterness made cucumber, pumpkin and their relatives into popular foods, but the same compounds also have potential to treat cancer and diabetes.The same compounds bred out of wild cucumbers to curb the bitter taste have potential to treat cancer and diabetes. (Thinkstock photo) "You don't eat wild cucumber, unless you want to use it as a purgative," said William Lucas, professor of plant biology at the University of California, Davis, and co-author on the paper published Nov. 28 in the journal Science.That bitter flavor in wild cucurbits — the family that includes cucumber, pumpkin, melon, watermelon and squash — is due to compounds called cucurbitacins. The bitter taste protects wild plants against predators.The fruit and leaves of wild cucurbits have been used in Indian and Chinese medicine for thousands of years, as emetics and purgatives and to treat liver disease. More recently, researchers have shown that cucurbitacins can kill or suppress growth of cancer cells.Bitterness is known to be controlled by two genetic traits, "Bi" which confers bitterness on the whole plant, and "Bt," which leads to bitter fruit. In the new work, Lucas, Sanwen Huang at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and colleagues employed the latest in DNA sequencing technology to identify the exact changes in DNA associated with bitterness.They also tasted a great many cucumbers. "Luckily this is an easy trait to test for," Lucas said. "You just chomp on a cucumber leaf of fruit and your tongue gives you the readout!"They were able to identify nine genes involved in making cucurbitacin and show that the trait can be traced to two transcription factors that switch on these nine genes, in either leaves or the fruit, to produce cucurbitacin.The new research shows how domestication tweaked cucumber genetics to make the fruit more edible. Understanding that process might open up approaches to developing other food crops based on plants that are naturally either inedible or poor in nutrition, Lucas said.It could also make it much easier to produce cucurbitacins in large enough quantities to use in clinical trials and potentially in medicine, Lucas said. For example the anti-malarial drug artemisinin, originally derived from traditional Chinese medicine, is now being produced either as a precursor molecule in yeast or through synthetic biology systems.Other collaborators on the study included researchers at the Institute of Vegetables and Flowers, Beijing; Agricultural Genomics Institute, Shenzhen, China; Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing; Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha; Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing; Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Changsha; Wuhan University, Wuhan; Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing; Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan; and Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands.UC Davis is growing CaliforniaAt UC Davis, we and our partners are nourishing our state with food, economic activity and better health, playing a key part in the state’s role as the top national agricultural producer for more than 50 years. UC Davis is participating in UC’s Global Food Initiative launched by UC President Janet Napolitano, harnessing the collective power of UC to help feed the world and steer it on the path to sustainability.About UC DavisUC Davis is a global community of individuals united to better humanity and our natural world while seeking solutions to some of our most pressing challenges. Located near the California state capital, UC Davis has more than 34,000 students, and the full-time equivalent of 4,100 faculty and other academics and 17,400 staff. The campus has an annual research budget of over $750 million, a comprehensive health system and about two dozen specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and 99 undergraduate majors in four colleges and six professional schools.Additional information:Related: Watermelon genome gives clues to disease resistance, plant vascular systemRelated: Cucumber genome publishedLucas LaboratoryMore news from: University of California, DavisWebsite: http://www.cnchemicals.com/: December 1, 2014The news item on this page is copyright by the organization where it originatedFair use notice