Scientists create anthocyanin-rich purple tomato

British scientists have created a purple tomato that is packed full of anthocyanins, powerful antioxidants that are believed to protect against cancer, cardiovascular disease, and age-related degenerative diseases.

Professor Cathie Martin and colleagues at the John Innes Centre in Norwich created the tomatoes by incorporating two genes involved in anthocyanin production in snapdragon plants into tomato plants. The genetically-modified (GM) tomato plants went on to produce purple tomatoes, which were found to contain concentrations of anthocyanins similar to those found in blackcurrants and blueberries.

The scientists went on to feed dried extracts of the purple tomato to cancer-susceptible mice. Results of the pilot study showed that mice fed the purple tomato extract had an average lifespan of 182 days, in comparison the average lifespan of mice fed a normal diet was just 142 days. Furthermore, the maximum lifespan of mice that ate the standard diet was 211 days, whereas the maximum lifespan of mice fed the diet supplemented with purple tomato was 260 days.

Butelli E, Titta L, Giorgio M, Mock HP, Matros A, Peterek S, Schijlen EGWM, Hall RD, Bovy AG, Luo J, Martin C. Enrichment of tomato fruit with health-promoting anthocyanins by expression of select transcription factors (letter). Nature Biotechnology. Published online: 26 October 2008 | doi:10.1038/nbt.1506