Why a cancer lab sequenced a Musang King
Singapore scientists decoded the durian genome in 2017 and traced its smell to a family of genes.
Durian genetics might seem an odd project for cancer researchers. Yet the 2017 study in Nature Genetics came from the National Cancer Centre Singapore and Duke-NUS Medical School, and it was paid for by private donations from anonymous durian enthusiasts. The co-lead author, Teh Bin Tean, said in the institutions' news release that his curiosity as a geneticist was simple: which gene causes that smell?
The team sequenced Musang King and reported about 46,000 genes, roughly double the human count given in the release. Tracing the plant's evolutionary history, they connected durian to the cacao plant, which gives us chocolate, about 65 million years back.
For the smell, they compared gene activity in leaves, roots and ripening fruit. Attention settled on methionine gamma lyases, or MGLs, a class of genes regulating the production of volatile sulphur compounds. Co-lead author Patrick Tan described production of these compounds as turbocharged in the fruit, in line with the sulphur note many people detect.
The researchers also offered an evolutionary guess: strong odour may help attract animals that eat the fruit and spread the seeds. That remains their suggestion rather than a tested finding in the release.
The cancer link is less strange than it looks. The centre's director, Soo Khee Chee, pointed to plants as a long-standing source of medicines, with the drug Taxol as an example. The team also said such sequencing could help preserve the genetic information of other durian species, some threatened by biodiversity loss, and it donated its data to Singapore's National Parks Board.
Sources
- News release on the study: institutions, funding, gene count, cacao link, MGL findings, speakers, data donation
- Teh et al. 2017 in Nature Genetics; Musang King as first sequenced durian variety