My new artwork for a recent Cell paper that used CRISPR to increase yield in tomato plants!
Today’s tomatoes are the result of thousands of years of domestication, illustrated by the path on the right towards natural selection of larger fruit size. Independently, a wild tomato strain emerged on the left path, carrying a different mutation that facilitates harvest. A combination of these two beneficial traits would optimize fruit production – however, breeding to cross those ‘paths’ leads to a negative interaction between those natural mutations, resulting in excessive branching and lower tomato yield. This challenge was finally solved by using CRISPR/Cas9 to balance the expression of key genes and create an improved tomato plant, as shown on the bottom.
Congratulations to the Lippman lab at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory!
