The GMO apple that won't brown when you cut it is in the news again.
The GMO apple that won't brown when you cut it is in the news again. It probably won't hurt anything, but what exactly is the purpose of polyphenol oxidase in the fruit? It's pretty rare that things in nature serve no purpose. So why is it there?
Because we don't like the taste, texture, and color of oxidation of our fruits and veggies, there's been a lot of research on how to keep this from happening, which is how we get the Arctic apple. But it turns out it may have other functions besides defense, and maybe it does or doesn't need this specific defense mechanism.
It may function in the immune system of insects. It is part of the process of fermenting tea - which is how you get a lot of types of tea. Here's an article from 2014 about polyphenols in plants: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4294140/
The apple itself has an interesting and reasonable explanation page: https://www.arcticapples.com/how-did-we-make-nonbrowning-apple/
They seem to suggest that this is, indeed, vestigial in apples. It's possible. I did say rare, not never. Of course, they also imply that the apples hardy produce any of this stuff, anyway, so how important could it be?
This may be a case where it really isn't an issue that we've hurried up the hybridization and selection process with science, but we aren't always as thoughtful about what we do as it turns out we ought to have been. So it's an open question.
https://www.arcticapples.com/how-did-we-make-nonbrowning-apple/
Because we don't like the taste, texture, and color of oxidation of our fruits and veggies, there's been a lot of research on how to keep this from happening, which is how we get the Arctic apple. But it turns out it may have other functions besides defense, and maybe it does or doesn't need this specific defense mechanism.
It may function in the immune system of insects. It is part of the process of fermenting tea - which is how you get a lot of types of tea. Here's an article from 2014 about polyphenols in plants: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4294140/
The apple itself has an interesting and reasonable explanation page: https://www.arcticapples.com/how-did-we-make-nonbrowning-apple/
They seem to suggest that this is, indeed, vestigial in apples. It's possible. I did say rare, not never. Of course, they also imply that the apples hardy produce any of this stuff, anyway, so how important could it be?
This may be a case where it really isn't an issue that we've hurried up the hybridization and selection process with science, but we aren't always as thoughtful about what we do as it turns out we ought to have been. So it's an open question.
https://www.arcticapples.com/how-did-we-make-nonbrowning-apple/
Comments
Post a Comment