The world's first super nutritious tomato comes out rich in astaxanthin

How to keep healthy body and beautiful face? This is a subject that scientists have been studying After 10 years of research, recently, Huang Junchao research group of Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, cooperated with Peking University and Hong Kong University to cultivate the world's first engineering tomato variety with high astaxanthin yield, which is rich in astaxanthin, the strongest antioxidant in nature, and has great prospect of industrialization and commercialization It is understood that astaxanthin is a special red carotenoid found in the shells of crabs and shrimps, oysters and salmon Its antioxidant function is 500 times that of vitamin E Astaxanthin can protect skin and eyes, resist radiation, cardiovascular aging, Alzheimer's disease and cancer However, the price of natural astaxanthin is high, about 6000 US dollars per kilogram, and the price of its health care products is even more comparable to that of gold, which is hard for most people to bear According to Huang Junchao, astaxanthin biosynthesis occurs only in a few organisms and its yield is very low Haematococcus pluvialis is the highest astaxanthin content organism in nature, and it is the only one cell eukaryotic green algae used for commercial production of natural astaxanthin Because of the slow growth and the genetic characteristics sensitive to the growth environment, the cultivation enterprises of Haematococcus pluvialis can only obtain the stable algae powder with small production scale and high production cost According to Huang Junchao's research team, plants are ideal astaxanthin processing plants β - carotene and astaxanthin in tomatoes belong to carotenoids, and their chemical structures are similar Therefore, they made a comprehensive comparative analysis on the synthesis pathway of microalgae astaxanthin and the gene of speed limiting enzyme in the key step of catalysis, solved the key problem of limiting the synthesis of astaxanthin by higher plants, and successfully developed a new engineering tomato variety with high astaxanthin production Its fruit can accumulate astaxanthin with a content similar to that of Haematococcus pluvialis, up to 1.6% "More importantly, as an economic plant, tomato can achieve large-scale production, with annual output of 20000 Jin per mu, simple cultivation and low cost It is estimated that the profit margin of astaxanthin production with our tomato is at least five times that of Haematococcus pluvialis " Said Huang Junchao At present, the new high-yield astaxanthin tomato variety is applying for patent It is planted in greenhouse for three generations, with stable character and astaxanthin content Next, the team will double the astaxanthin content in the new tomato varieties and conduct pilot tests It is expected to complete the evaluation of each index in 2-3 years, hoping that the product can move from the laboratory to the market.