Gene Tweaks Promise Vitamin Drenched Food

Makarand writes "Scientists have identified a gene in ripe strawberries that holds the promise of creating vitamin-drenched food of the future according to this article in the Taipei Times. The gene encodes an enzyme in strawberry plants that helps to convert a protein called D-galacturonic acid to vitamin C. In a recent study, the same gene tweaked to overexpress the enzyme in a weed called thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana), the plant equivalent of the laboratory mouse, churned out two or three times the normal amounts of vitamin C. The study suggests that other plants that use these genes can be engineered to have high vitamin levels."

Comments

Re:citric acid

[Monkelectric]

Citric Acid (C6H8O7) is very similar to vitamin C (C6H8O6), and is primarily used as a preservative. It occurs naturally in most of the same places Ascorbic Acid does (citrus fruits) but in much smaller concentrations.

I know all this because Citric Acid alergies are actually pretty common, and for a ceartin percentage of people citric acid makes you die :)