Genetic manipulation has come a long way
Humans have been using genetic engineering for thousands of years, long before working in lab coats. From cute dogs to edible fruit, breeding has long been used to grow valuable plants and animals.
These days, scientists are doing more precise genetic manipulations in the lab. However, the results were not always perfect. Until recently, genetic modification was a bit finicky and might produce organisms that might thrive in the laboratory, but not in real-world conditions.
to control
Professor Ryan Lister of the University of Western Australia co-authored a paper on how to better engineer plants through more sophisticated gene editing.
“Organisms have complex programs that control when, where and how much genes are turned on or off,” says Ryan.
“We want to genetically engineer plants that are as sophisticated as what natural evolution has achieved.”
These complex, naturally evolved control programs enable plants to respond to their environment. For example, plants may have naturally evolved genes that are “on” only under high heat conditions. If we can identify the natural genetic control program that turns on that gene, we can reproduce that control program in other parts of the plant. In this example, it means that plants can be designed to respond to heat in very specific ways.
Weatherability
Mastering this level of genetic manipulation gives researchers greater control over the economic output of plants. It can be turned into finely tuned biological factories that efficiently create high-value molecules or improve responses to harsh external influences such as pests and climate change.
The application of this research is wide. In Australia, this could be game-changing for an agricultural sector that is increasingly vulnerable to harsh environmental conditions.
“An established system becomes unstable when the weather becomes unpredictable,” says Ryan.
“But if we know what environmental stresses are coming, we can design plants to withstand these stresses and reduce losses.”
Therefore, weather-tolerant plants were probably an obvious application of the research findings.
What about growing plants in space? Can Ryan’s research help with that?
cosmic seed
Ryan is part of a multi-university research project called the Australian Research Council’s Center of Excellence in Plants for Space. This project explores how to design plants that thrive in extraterrestrial environments.
“For the past thousands of years, as humans have spread across the globe, we have carried plants with us. Plants sustain our civilization and enrich our lives and health.” Ryan says.
“It goes without saying that they are very efficient and versatile machines capable of creating a great variety of molecules and materials.”
If you build a colony on the moon or Mars, it will be difficult to bring in machines that make medicine and so on. But if plants can be engineered to produce specific molecules on demand, all they need is seeds to grow those plants.
return to ground
Back on Earth, Ryan’s research can be applied to other things like vertical farming. Innovative agricultural practices are based on strictly controlled environmental inputs.
“Growing plants indoors in an efficiently managed environment allows us to achieve very high growth and productivity with very low nutrient and water usage,” says Ryan.
“But these are environments that are very different from those in which plants evolved, and come with their own challenges. We aim to overcome these to achieve even higher productivity and versatility.”
“Indoor farming can remove the challenges of transporting fresh produce from remote farms where it was traditionally produced to key points of demand and consumption. , which could be a real boon for overcoming food sovereignty challenges.”
Growing genetically modified plants on Mars requires many steps. But as anyone who has done a little gardening knows, small things grow big.
Original: Turning plants into biological factories
Than: University of Western Australia
