Welcome to Harry's Tasty Tomato Page
| HARRY J. KLEE, Ph.D., Professor Horticultural Sciences Department Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Program PO Box 110690 Gainesville, FL 32611 Contact: Email Phone: (352) 392-8249 |
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Current Research
Our current research has two major emphases:
Flavor quality - We are working to understand the chemical and genetic make-up of "flavor" in fruits and vegetables. While we emphasize tomato in our research, we also have conducted research on melons, strawberries and lettuce. Over the years, much of the flavor has been lost from commercial varieties of tomato. The taste of a tomato is the consequence of the interactions of sugars, acids and a set of 15-20 volatile compounds. These volatiles are derived from a diverse set of precursors, including amino acids, fatty acids and carotenoids. How all of these chemicals are integrated into the unique flavor of a tomato is not understood. Much of our research involves defining the most desirable combination of volatiles. For this, we use the wealth of available tomato varieties available to us, including heirlooms, wild relatives of the cultivated tomato, and transgenic technology. The ultimate goal of our research is to identify the genes that control synthesis of the flavor volatiles and use this knowledge to produce a better-tasting tomato.
Carotenoid cleavage dioxygenases - Many carotenoids and their metabolites, the apocarotenoids, contribute to flavor and aroma of foods. They also contribute to the scent of many ornamentals such as rose and petunia. The carotenoid cleavage dioxygenases (CCDs) have major roles in generating many of the important and valuable apocarotenoids. Complementing our Arabidopsis work, we have used tomato as a model for flavor and petunia as a model for scent.