Many plants all over the world produce fleshy fruits and they are key components when it comes to the diet of many living things on earth. In this case, tomatoes are a type of fleshy fruits and play an important role in plant developmental system. Tomato ( solanum Lycopersicum) is a fleshy fruit and through its tomato genome, the information decoded shows that, plant breeding, evolutional studies and genomics are some of its implications. Fleshy fruits like the tomato, when studied, have shown the capability to use its genome sequence for development and productivity purposes, this as a result will increase breeding of powerful sustainable crops and different traits intended. Fleshy fruits also through the genomic will mean that food security will be catered for due to the rising number of people and scarcity of sustainable crop production. Based on research, the recent information from the decoded genome sequence of a tomato, grape, and potatoes show that, tomato genome will increase crop improvement programs and since studying other plants can be very complicated, tomato genome sequence will offer different traits to go for and which specific trait offers the best nutritional value for researches to go for due to its simple architecture.
The three figures A, B, and C represents the Tomato Genome topography and synteny. In figure A, shows the Multi-dimensional topography of the chromosome 1 where all the chromosomes 2-12 are displayed in a supplementary manner from a to d in the tomato. Figure B, displays the Solanaceae syntenic relationships of different plants which includes; pepper, eggplant and potato. This is in accordance to the tomato genome. Figure C, shows the different syntenic relation of the potato and the tomato, in this case they are displayed with dot plots where the tomato is represent by letter (T) and (P) represents the Potato genomic sequences as seen on the collinear block. The relation of the gene shows the difference as to whether the genes are related and which can pair for a better study. Still in structure C, the gene pairs as seen are represent by the red blue dots as stated by Tomato Genome Consortium (2012).
Different methods were used based on each part. These methods that were used include the Heinz inbred line whereby in part A it’s used to determine the different number and order of chromosomes including the nucleotides in the DNA molecules of the tomato. Hap-mapping or HAPPY mapping is another method that is used where the linkage of DNA sequences are studied to establish and access synteny of the DNA’s across the different given genome for example in figure B, different relationships of pepper, eggplant and potato are studies and displayed under the comparative map. All this was validates by the use of mate pair method which involves the long insert paired end DNA which is essential for different sequencing applications. In part C of the figure, BAC-FISH method was used and as represented in the figure, a comparative syntenic relation of the gene sequence are seen based on the dots on which genes can pair in high and low significance based on the Collinear Blocks ( The Tomato Genome ( TGC) Supplementary Information, 2012).
- The Tomato Genome Consortium ( TGC) Supplementary information . (2012). The Tomato genome sequence provides insights into fleshy fruit evolution , 13-20.
- Tomato Genome Consortium. (January 01, 2012). The tomato genome sequence provides insights into fleshy fruit evolution. Nature, 485, 7400, 635-41.