By Izah Morales
INQUIRER.net

CEBU, Philippines – Scientists today are using genetic engineering to improve the short shelf-life and post-harvest losses of papaya and lessen use of pesticides on eggplants, experts said during a symposium on biotechnology and nutritionally enhanced food crops here.

According to Dr. Evelyn Mae Tecson-Mendoza, research professor of Biochemistry at the Institute of Plant Breeding-University of the Philippines Los Banos (IPB-UPLB), the transgenic papaya or genetically modified papaya by recombinant has now longer shelf-life than the ordinary papaya.

“The papaya usually ripens two days after having a full yellow color and you have to eat it on the second or the third day. Otherwise, it won’t be edible. With this technology, we can delay it from 4 up to 14 days,” elaborated Mendoza.

Delaying the ripening of papaya was made possible through suppressing the production of ethylene. This was done by inhibiting the ACC synthase from synthesizing through the antisense technology, Mendoza said.

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