"Cultivated tomato" refers to a tomato variety that has been selectively bred and grown by humans for specific traits such as size, shape, color, and taste. It is the type of tomato that is commonly found in grocery stores, different from wild tomato plants.
Full definition
Natural variation exists in the levels of pectate lyase gene expression in wild relatives
of cultivated tomato and these can be used for conventional breeding purposes.
«If we can understand how these wild tomato relatives thrive in drought conditions, we can try to introduce those traits
into cultivated tomatoes or other crops,» Rose said.
This work relies on natural variation for these traits that is present
in cultivated tomato and in the 12 wild relatives of tomato that occur in South America.
New World Discovery
The cultivated tomato is a member of the nightshade family that includes New World crops such as potato and chili pepper, which spread around the world after Christopher Columbus brought them back to Spain in the 15th century.
DNA sequence differences between the pectate lyase genes from
the cultivated tomato and S. pennellii can then be used as markers to screen the progeny from this cross.
Using conventional plant breeding, tomato wild species can be readily crossed with
the cultivated tomato.