A study was initiated at the Izmir Institute of Technology (IYTE) Plant Science and Technology Application and Research Center to “silence the gene” that causes the spiciness of pepper, with the assumption that hot pepper can cause stomach upset.
İYTE Molecular Biology Faculty Member Prof. DR. The studies titled “Genome Editing with the CRISPR/Cas9 System for the Capsaicin Synthase Gene in Pepper” and “Development of gRNAs for the Exon1 and Exon2 Regions of the Capsaicin Synthase Gene (Pun1) in Pepper” were carried out under the supervision of Sami Doğanlar and lasted about three years.
The project was also supported by TÜBİTAK. The aim of the study was to create a new variety of bell pepper using CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing technology to reduce the bitterness of the pepper and preserve other aromatic properties.
In the studies, the genome of the “Pun1” gene, which is responsible for the spiciness in pepper, was rearranged and the bitterness of the product was eliminated.
Prof. DR. Sami Doğanlar said that gene silencing is a technique to suppress genes whose products are not needed in certain cell types or tissues during normal development and differentiation.
Doğanlar stated that pepper plays an important role in Turkey's agricultural production, but traditional breeding methods pose various difficulties, and explained that they decided to develop the project on this basis.
Doğanlar emphasized that the CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing system ushers in “a new era” in pepper breeding, explaining that this technology not only accelerates product development processes but also enables more effective transfer of higher yield and product quality traits.
Doğanlar explained that if this system they are working on is successful, they could achieve an even more important position in the Turkish pepper industry:
“In our project, we wanted to knock out the gene that makes peppers hot, because when you go to the hospital, there are a lot of people in gastroenterology wards with stomach problems. Nowadays, people prefer to consume sweet peppers rather than hot peppers, but that's the way it is. It's very difficult to improve the quality characteristics and aroma of sweet peppers because, in general, sweet peppers are different from hot peppers.” If the gene for hot peppers is removed, other taste and aroma genes are also removed. You can hardly taste it. We have been trying for the last 10 years to make peppers sweeter, preserving all their aroma, agronomic and yield characteristics. In other words, we have silenced the bitterness gene. Our project is now complete, we have tasted the peppers obtained and observed the mutation as a sequence.
Prof. DR. Sami Doğanlar stated that they want to see the fruits of this work in a short time.
Lecturer Dr., one of the scientists involved in the project. Hatice Şelale Yıldız said, “In our DNA sequencing studies, we found that there was a change in our target gene, that is, its sequence changed. In other words, we observed this change both agromorphologically and genetically,” he said.
CRISPR technology
CRISPR/Cas9, defined as a gene editing method that allows living organisms to make targeted and precise changes to their DNA, is used in many fields such as medicine, agriculture, industry and public health.
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