Email
Dr. Paul Bosland is a New Mexico State University Regents professor and director of the Chile Pepper Institute. (Courtesy of Chile Pepper Institute)
LAS CRUCES —Are you ready for a vanilla dessert chile pepper? How about pepper plants with leaves and stems as brilliantly colored (and maybe even as spicy) as their spectacular fruits?
Nobody has to tell those of us in the Chile Capital of the World that our favorite pepper is something special.
But mapping the entire genome of the chile pepper has brought us new information about just how unique chiles are, along with some exciting new potentials, Paul Bosland reported at the Chile Pepper Institute’s 2013 New Mexico Chile Leaders Dinner earlier this month.
“This puts NMSU and the , Chile Pepper Institute on the cutting edge with a new level of research,” said Bosland, a New Mexico State University Regents professor and director of the Chile Pepper Institute.
It might even be argued that chiles are more sophisticated and complex than the humans who eat them.
“We’ve now determined that the chile pepper has approximately 3.5 billion base pairs, which are the building blocks that make up the DNA double helix, compared to tomatoes which have about 950 million (homo sapiens have about 3 billion). The Human Genome Project determined we have about 20,000 genes. Chile peppers have about 37,000 genes.
“Whether that means chiles are more evolved than we are, I don’t know,” quipped Bosland.
The chile genome project, a cooperative effort with a leading South Korea university laboratory, could have some very serious benefits.
To complete the first-ever high-resolution draft of the chile pepper genome, the institute sent NMSU graduate student Greg Reeves to Seoul National University in South Korea last summer to work with professor Doil Choi and his Illumina sequencer.
“It’s a very expensive, incredibly advanced machine that only takes a few days to do the same amount of genetic processing work that previously took 600 machines 10 years to accomplish,” Bosland reported.
The project gives researchers a map to “unlock the genetic secrets of the chile pepper, providing a powerful tool to examine previously unimagined questions and will accelerate efforts to breed improved cultivars,” Bosland said.
The genome information could help researchers more rapidly develop plants that can adapt to climate change, are more resistant to insects and diseases, use less water and cultivate special characteristics that would allow more parts of the plant to be used, Bosland speculated, standing before a screen labeled “Endless Possibilities,” as diners worked their way through a seven-course, chile-enhanced banquet. The feast ended with a chocolate cake served with potent dots of “Sancto Scorpion Fudge Sauce,” spiked with Trinidad Moruga Scorpion Red, announced as a contender for the world’s hottest chile pepper at the institute’s 2012 Chile Leaders Dinner.
In terms of potentials and possibilities, the genome project is likely the institute’s hottest announcement to date.
