RESEARCH: Cancer medicine from cucumbers.

RESEARCH: Cancer medicine from cucumbers. The bitter flavor in wild cucurbits -- the family that includes cucumber, pumpkin, melon, watermelon and squash -- is due to compounds called cucurbitacins. The bitter taste protects wild plants against predators. The fruit and leaves of wild cucurbits have been used in Indian and Chinese medicine for thousands of years, as emetics and purgatives and to treat liver disease. A recent study have shown that cucurbitacins can kill or suppress growth of cancer cells. RESEARCH: Cancer medicine from cucumbers. The new research by University of California - Davis published in science journal has shown that curbing this bitterness made cucumber, pumpkin and their relatives into popular foods, but the same compounds also have potential to treat cancer and diabetes.Bitterness is known to be controlled by two genetic traits, "Bi" which confers bitterness on the whole plant and "Bt," which leads to bitter fruit. This research used the latest in DNA sequencing technology to identify the exact changes in DNA associated with bitterness.The researchers were able to identify nine genes involved in making cucurbitacin, and show that the trait can be traced to two transcription factors that switch on these nine genes, in either leaves or the fruit, to produce cucurbitacin. The new research sheds more light on how domestication changed cucumber genetics to make the fruit more edible. Understanding this process open up new approaches to developing other food crops based on plants that are naturally either inedible or poor in nutrition. #cross breeding #selective breeding #biotechnology.