Evaluation and use of plant biodiversity for food and pharmaceuticals

Many epidemiological studies have shown the importance of fruit and vegetables in the human diet so as to prevent the onset of cardiovascular disease and several forms of cancer. The use for food and pharmaceuticals of two of the most widely grown and genetically well-known species in the world, the tomato and the potato, is reviewed. Tomatoes are important sources of vitamin C, potassium, folic acid and carotenoids such as lycopene and beta-carotene. It has been demonstrated that lycopene has anti-oxidant properties and interferes with the growth of cancerous cells. At the Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics in Portici, interesting results have been obtained with the constitution of stable tomato hybrids having a high content of lycopene and vitamin C. Many of the parental lines used in constituting the hybrids come from interspecific crosses. Potato is also very important in the human diet for its content of high quality proteins, mineral salts and vitamins and it has many medicinal properties. The use of diploid wild species to transfer traits such as high content of vitamin C, mineral salts and high quality proteins into the cultivated potato through ploidy manipulation is discussed.