Specialists from the American University of North Carolina, in a publication in Nature Plants, presented the results of their research work, during which they found that during the selection process, carrots acquired an orange color due to three genes, recessive mutations in which allowed them to accumulate a large number of orange pigments , namely alpha and beta carotene.

American specialists analyzed 630 genomes of modern carrots, from which they assembled an improved reference genome of this root vegetable. Subsequently, DNA was isolated from each of them and the sequence of fragments was established, in which overlaps were identified and a complete genome was assembled. This allowed scientists to recreate the evolutionary tree of carrots and establish the exact moment of cultivation of one or another variety.

Thus, they were convinced that carrots became domesticated at the beginning of the Middle Ages in Central Asia, and they acquired their characteristic orange color in Western Europe already during the Renaissance. The scientists’ findings indicate that three variants of genes responsible for the accumulation of orange pigments alpha- and beta-carotene were responsible for the color. They were found in the REC, Or and Y2 loci, and mutations in them almost immediately turned the root crop dark orange.

Source: Gismeteo

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