They also concluded that the coffee plant’s caffeine enzymes evolved independently from those in cacao (or cocoa, the main raw ingredient of chocolate) and tea. Compared with other plants the scientists examined, coffee possessed larger families of genes related to making alkaloid and flavonoid compounds that contribute to the aroma and bitterness of beans. “For any agricultural plant, having a genome is a prerequisite for any sort of high technology breeding or molecular modification,” says plant genomist Victor Albert of the University at Buffalo, one of the researchers. “Without a genome, we couldn’t do any real advanced research on coffee that would allow us to improve it – not in this day and age,” he adds.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 06:46:34 +0000
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