Ketchup and fries make a tasty pair. But the connection between tomatoes and potatoes may go beyond making a good meal: Potatoes today might have evolved with help from an early tomato, according to a new paper published in the journal Cell on Thursday.
Scientists already knew that tomatoes and potatoes were related to some degree—both belong to the Solanum genus, after all, along with the eggplant. And potatoes and tomatoes are each other’s closest living relatives. But scientists couldn’t explain the origin of the potato’s tubers, the underground, edible parts of many root plants. So, they took a closer look at their genes.
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Thomas Städler, a population geneticist at ETH Zürich who was not involved in the work, tells Erik Stokstad at Science that he isn’t convinced this hybridization alone led to the plant’s ability to diversify. Opportunities for further research in that area, he adds, will be exciting.
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