论文部分内容阅读
Tomato flavor is a complex food sensation involving integration of multiple sensory inputs with~30 chemicals influencing consumer preferences,including sugars,acids and volatiles.This large number of flavor chemicals makes the underlying genetics extremely complex.Consequently,flavor quality has largely been ignored by breeders and modern varieties are widely perceived as being less flavorful.Our goal is to reverse that deterioration,starting with the consumer and working back through biochemistry to the underlying genetics.Cultivars spanning a broad range of biochemical diversity were evaluated by consumers,generating a sensory profile of liking.The resulting statistical preference models provide a target for genetic improvement,defining the most important chemicals contributing to flavor.In parallel,we have developed a comprehensive understanding of the biosynthetic pathways and rate-limiting steps for the most important volatiles.In collaboration with Sanwen Huangs group,we have expanded our analyses to genome-wide selections,identifying alleles of many genes that associate with desirable alleles affecting flavor chemical composition.That information is now being harnessed to build a toolbox for molecular breeders to restore great flavor in elite commercial varieties.