Medical Discovery News
Science permeates everyday life. Yet the understanding of advances in biomedical science is limited at best. Few people make the connection that biomedical science is medicine and that biomedical scientists are working today for the medicine of tomorrow. Our weekly five-hundred-word newspaper column (http://www.illuminascicom.com/) and two-minute radio show provide insights into a broad range of biomedical science topics. Medical Discovery News is dedicated to explaining discoveries in biomedical research and their promise for the future of medicine. Each release is designed to stimulate listeners to think, question and appreciate how science affects their health as well as that of the rest of the world. We also delve into significant biomedical discoveries and portray how science (or the lack of it) has impacted health throughout history.
Medical Discovery News
You Say Tomato and I say. Tomahto
1001 You Say Tomato and I say Tomahto
Welcome to Medical Discovery News. I’m Dr. David Niesel.
And I’m Dr. Norbert Herzog.
You know the old song lyric, “you say tomayto and I say tomahto?” Well, a new study has Dave and me saying, “you say tomato and I say potato.”
That’s because the tomato plant may be the ancestor to potato plants. At some point, the tomato genome joined with an ancestral form of a tuberless potato plant to form today’s potat in South America’s Andes mountains about nine million years ago.
The ancestral tuberless potato plant is called Etubersum. It had been a scientific mystery how this plant’s stem began enlarging into potatoes until a Chinese research group did molecular analysis on more than forty wild potato species and a dozen species of wild tomato plants.
They found that wild potatoes have a genome that’s the combination of tomato and Etubersum genes. And the mixing is extensive which means large presence of both genes, implying the potato wasn’t the result of simple mutations.
Instead, the theory is that the genomes hybridized together to form the modern potato. A single gene called SPAsix may be the genetic switch that creates tubers in potatoes.
And a second gene called IT-one directs the underground stems to develop into potatoes. Today, over one hundred potato species grow in the wild and form potatoes of various shapes and colors.
Results from the new study may help scientists grow hardier potatoes which will be important as the earth warms and crops will need to adapt.
We are Drs. David Niesel and Norbert Herzog, at UTMB and Quinnipiac University, where biomedical discoveries shape the future of medicine. For much more and our disclaimer go to medicaldiscoverynews.com or subscribe to our podcast.
