Scientists on track to achieve sweeter STRAWBERRIES? - Científicos en camino de lograr FRUTILLAS (FRESAS) más dulces?

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Monellin is a sweet protein discovered in 1969 in the fruit of the West African shrub known as serendipity berry (Dioscoreophyllum cumminsii). Monellin, originally reported as a carbohydrate, was named in 1972 after the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia (USA), where the protein was isolated and characterized.

A team of scientists from several a research institutes in Korea conducted experiments introducing the monellin gene into the strawberry genome. The Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain EHA105 harboring the monellin gene under the control of the CaMV 35S promoter was used in co-cultivation experiments. The frequencies of callus formation and plant regeneration from leaf explants after co-cultivation in ‘Yeobong’ were higher than those of ‘Maehyang’. These transgenic plants showed normal growth patterns and flowering. PCR and Southern hybridization confirmed that 1 to 2 copies of the monellin gene were integrated into genome of the transgenic strawberry plants. Northern blot analysis confirm that the transcripts were expressed in transgenic strawberry plants. Although long-term subcultured transgenic strawberry plants showed a phenomenon to escape the transgene, the transformation system established in this study provides new opportunities for genetic improvement of strawberry plants.

Sources: 
1) Development of transgenic strawberry plants expressing monellin, a sweet protein. Sung Ran Min, Suk Min Ko, Jae Il Lyu, Ji Hyun Park, So Young Yi, In-Ha Lee, Hyun Sook Kim, Tae Il Kim, Pil Son Choi, Won-Joong Jeong, Suk Weon Kim, Jonghyun Kim and Jang R. Liu. Journal of Plant Biotechnology 2015, 42:180-185.   http://dx.doi.org/10.5010/JPB.2015.42.3.180.
2) https://en.wikipedia.org