How Cucumbers Got Longer, and Why It's a Big Deal for Farming

By John Innes Centre

Cucumbers, a summer staple of salads and sandwiches, are a valuable commercial crop. They also have a less well-known role as valuable model plants which are helping researchers to extend the boundaries of genomic discovery.

A research collaboration between the John Innes Centre and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) used an array of experiments and genomic analysis to probe the differences between wild cucumbers and their domestic relatives at a molecular level.

They targeted the genetics that underpin fruit elongation in domesticated cucumbers, which are longer than their stubby, bitter tasting wild relatives.

Their findings, published in the journal Cell, shed light on an increasingly important area of genetics and may allow us to breed bigger, higher yielding crops with much greater precision and variety.

Much of modern plant breeding targets mutations in DNA sequences which encode proteins, the cellular machines that deliver traits in the field, such as long or short fruits, bitter or sweet flavors, and round or wrinkled seeds.

But these protein encoding genes only account for a small proportion of the genome. Increasingly, researchers are using modern tools to explore DNA sequences that do not code for proteins.

Synonymous mutations, previously known as silent mutations, are an example of non-coding regions in the genome that are increasingly attracting the interest of biologists.