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Mark Twain called it “the most delicious fruit known to men.” He was talking about the cherimoya. If you never heard of it, there’s good reason. It has a feature that has prevented it from becoming widely popular—numerous big seeds fill its sweet white flesh.

馬克吐溫稱之為“人類所知的最美味的水果?！边@就是毛葉番荔枝。假如你從未聽(tīng)說(shuō)過(guò)這個(gè)名字，那也情有可原。這種水果的特性讓它不能街知巷聞——它甜美的白果肉里有許多巨大的種子。

But now scientists in Spain and at the University of California, Davis, have found the key to making the cherimoya and related fruits seedless. They published their research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

但現(xiàn)在西班牙的科學(xué)家和加利福尼亞大學(xué)的達(dá)維斯發(fā)現(xiàn)了讓毛葉番荔枝和同種水果去籽的方法。他們?cè)凇睹绹?guó)科學(xué)院學(xué)報(bào)》上刊登了研究成果。

It’s generally tough to develop a seedless fruit—bananas and oranges are rare successes. Breeding for seedlessness usually fails to produce the fully developed fruit consumers' demand. But the scientists found a spontaneous mutation that causes seedlessness in a cherimoya relative, the sugar apple. They compared its genome to that of a seedless mutant of a plant called Arabidopsis that’s used in a lot of research.

培育無(wú)籽水果通常是很困難的——香蕉和橙子是罕見(jiàn)的成功例子。無(wú)籽水果的繁殖通常都會(huì)因果實(shí)無(wú)法發(fā)育至人們所需而失敗。但科學(xué)家找到了一個(gè)自發(fā)變異，這種變異可以使毛葉番荔枝的親戚——番荔枝——去籽。他們將番荔枝的基因組和實(shí)驗(yàn)中經(jīng)常使用的無(wú)籽突變植物——擬南芥——的基因組進(jìn)行比較。

In both cases, they found a deletion of one particular gene. The researchers say this is the first time a gene for seedlessness has been determined. If they can find a way to knock out that gene in the cherimoya, it could bring Mark Twain’s favorite fruit, and many others, to a grocery store near you.

他們發(fā)現(xiàn)兩種水果都有某段基因缺失。研究人員表示這是第一次發(fā)現(xiàn)無(wú)子果實(shí)的基因。如果他們找到方法鎖定毛葉番荔枝中的無(wú)籽基因，就有可能讓馬克吐溫和許多人最愛(ài)的水果出現(xiàn)在你家附近的雜貨店里了。

—Cynthia Graber

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