Selection of Tomato Rich in Nutritional

There is a rising concern about the nutritional and functional properties of food and its use to promote human health and prevent diseases. Considering the high level of consumption of tomato, this vegetable has become an ideal source of health promoting compounds. Among the terpenes, carotenoids have received most part of the attention. The terpenes lycopene and b-carotene have been related to decreased levels of certain heart diseases as well as certain types of cancer. Consequently, a high interest has been placed in the selection of lines with increased levels of these terpenes. The main difficulties in this process have relied on the necessity to separate genotypic effects on the trait from