BrainStuff Classics: What Makes Durian Fruit Smell So Bad?

Durian fruit is prized as a delicacy and staple -- and it smells like rotting. Learn how researchers mapped its genome to get to the bottom of this stench (and hopefully find something medicinally useful) in this classic episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/genetic/durian-smell-origin-genome.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hi
brain Stuff. I'm Lauren vogel Baum, and this this is
a classic brain Stuff episode. This one is about Daurian,
a fruit prized for its sweet, creamy taste and sometimes
villainized for its stinky smell. But what causes that smell

(00:22):
and could that or something else in its jeans help
find a cure to something like cancer? Hey, brain Stuff,
Lauren Vogelbaum. Here in Southeast Asia, the Durian is called
the king of fruits, but not everybody in the world
bows down to this bulbous, spiny, custardy delicacy. That's usually

(00:42):
because of the odor. The smell of a ripe daurian
has been compared to sweaty socks, road kill, custard, rotten eggs, garlic, cheese,
a gas leak, and a sewer full of rotting pineapples.
And it's strong enough that in places where it grows,
many businesses and public areas have to graphics signs up
no Durian, like no smoking, but with a spiny ball

(01:04):
in the place of the cigarette. But still the fruit
has its super fans, and now some of those super
fans from the National Cancer Center Singapore and Duke and
US Medical School, along with some financial donors who love
Durians enough too privately fund to study about them, have
completely mapped the Dairyan genome to find out, among other things,

(01:25):
why the putrid stench durians. In the study published in
the journal Nature Genetics, the researchers sequenced the genome of
a popular and prized Durian variety called Mussang King and
found its genome is made up of around forty six
thousand genes, just about double the number of genes that
composed the human genome. They found the plant is closely
related to both cotton and cacao. That's right, the plant

(01:48):
that gives us chocolate. But the researchers were really interested
in the source of the smell, so in snooping around
the genome for odor producing compounds, they found a class
of genes called mg l S that s methionin gamma
liaises in the leaves, roots, and fruits of Daurian plants.
The researchers found that these genes regulate the synthesis of

(02:08):
odor producing volatile sulfur compounds or vs cs, you know,
like rotten egg smell. They also discovered that in the
ripe fruit, the expression of one of these vcs expressing
genes is about two thousand times stronger than in other
parts of the plant in the wild. This aspect may
be responsible for attracting seed dispersing animals like elephants and

(02:30):
bats to the Daurian fruit. This isn't the first research
conducted on the Durian's unique scent. In a team of
German researchers identified dozens of chemical compounds that combine to
create the smell, but that research did not investigate the
genes behind those compounds. The current research team was hoping
to make an important medical discovery with the sequencing of

(02:50):
the mussang king genome. After all, anticancer drugs like taxol
derived from the bark of the Pacific u save lives
every day, and as biodiversity deep creases all over the world,
we need to figure out what we have while it's
still around. But as Durian enthusiasts, these scientists also just
wanted to investigate how this quirky and controversial plant might

(03:11):
be conserved. Besides Mussang King, there are around thirty other
species of Durian, both edible and inedible. In the Southeast
Asian forests, and some of them are endangered. In a
press release, co lead author Dr t Ben Tian, Deputy
Director of the National Cancer Center Singapore, wrote, many of
these other Daian species are in this part of the world,
and sadly some are endangered due to the increasing loss

(03:33):
of biodiversity. DNA sequencing is thus an important tool to
protect the precious information contained in these fascinating and important plants.
To Day's episode is based on the article cancer Scientists
sniff out the genes behind Daurian's famous stink on how
Stuffworks dot Com, written by Jesslin Shields. Brain Stuff is

(03:55):
production of I Heart Radio in partnership with how Stuffworks
dot Com, and it is produced by Tyler Playing. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

(04:18):
H