A gene that controls the shape of tomatoes has been identified which could help plant breeders to develop new varieties of fruit and vegetables of unusual shapes and sizes.

The gene, known as Sun, makes certain varieties become elongated, research from Ohio State University has found. Details of the gene, which was named after the Sun 1642 tomato variety in which it was found, are published in the journal Science.

Varities of tomatoes are round, pear-shaped, oval, chilli-shaped and even oblong. Esther van der Knaap, who led the study, said: “Tomatoes are the model in this emerging field of fruit morphology studies. We are trying to understand what kind of genes caused the enormous increase in fruit size and variation in fruit shape as tomatoes were domesticated. We identified one key candidate gene that was turned on at high levels in the tomato varieties carrying the elongated fruit type.

“Sun doesn’t tell us exactly how the fruit-shape phenotype is altered but what we do know is that turning the gene on is very critical to result in elongated fruit. We can now move forward and ask: Does this gene control fruit morphology in other vegetables and fruit crops?”

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