Ancient plant DNA switches offer new tools for crop breeding
Baku, March 13, AZERTAC
A new study led by scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has uncovered a set of ancient genetic instructions that control how plants grow, a discovery researchers say could help farmers develop more resilient and productive crops, according to TPS-IL.
Professor Idan Efroni, who led the research, told The Press Service of Israel exclusively that by identifying the hidden DNA sequences that determine when plant genes switch on or off, biotechnology firms may be able to improve important crop traits without altering the genes themselves.
“We discovered the ancient mechanism that gives instructions to the genes, and is common to all plants. With this understanding, we can change plant traits and optimize them, such as size or color,” Efroni told TPS-IL.
“In the past, it was done through trial and error. Now we can create the change quickly,” he added.
The findings, published in the peer-reviewed Science, help solve a long-standing mystery in plant biology, Efroni explained to TPS-IL. While many plant species grow leaves, stems and flowers in similar ways, scientists have struggled to find the shared DNA instructions that control those processes.
Efroni’s research team analyzed the genomes of 284 plant species to identify patterns that remained similar across different plants. Using a new computational method developed for the project, the scientists discovered about 2.3 million regulatory DNA sequences that have been preserved across plant evolution.
Among them were more than 3,000 sequences that existed even before flowering plants appeared on Earth. Many of these ancient sequences sit near genes that control the overall structure of plants.
Efroni said that when his team altered these sequences, the plants — mostly tomatoes and corn — developed severe abnormalities, demonstrating that the ancient genetic instructions remain essential for plant growth today.
For agriculture, the implications could be significant and likely expand to many kinds of crops, according to Dr. Alexander Goldshmidt of the Plant Science Department at the Volcani Institute. Volcani is the research arm of Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture.
“This discovery provides plant scientists and breeders with a powerful new set of tools to precisely tune how genes operate in crops,” Goldshmidt told TPS-IL.
He said the findings suggest that scientists may eventually be able to design highly targeted gene editing changes in regulatory DNA, allowing genes to be switched on or off only at specific stages of plant development or in particular tissues.
“Such approaches could help improve crop traits while avoiding the harmful side effects that sometimes occur when a gene is completely disabled,” he said.
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