Scientists harvest information about the tomato genome

Gerard Bishop, who co-led the UK research team as Reader of Plant Biology in the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London, said: "The publication of the tomato genome sequence has been eagerly anticipated both by the international research community and by tomato growers and breeders worldwide. Coordinating the efforts of over 300 scientists across 14 countries has been a considerable achievement in which the UK has played an important role, and the outcomes of this effort are already having an impact on the global research effort to deliver better tomatoes." Initially UK researchers worked on a segment of the project to sequence chromosome 4, one of the 12 chromosomes in each cell that contain the genetic information a plant needs to survive. Later, bioinformatics experts at Imperial contributed to the wider tomato genome project using computer tools to link sections of the genetic code with observable traits in tomato plants. Sarah Butcher, another author of the research paper and Head of the Bioinformatics Support Service in Imperial's Centre for Integrative Systems Biology and Bioinformatics (CISBIO) , said: "Assembling the DNA for the 35,000 known tomato genes is like piecing together a giant genome jigsaw puzzle, with all the pieces representing the contributions made by individual experiments. Interpreting what the code of the genome means is something that can only fully happen once the pieces have all been slotted into place and the picture on the jigsaw emerges.