The conversion of energy from the sun into biochemical energy by plants and other photosynthetically competent organisms drives and sustains life on the earth. While the ability to perform photosynthesis provides autotrophic growth, it can be a double-edged sword.
The Global Plant Council and Frontiers in Plant Science are delighted to announce the winning Research Topic from the 2022 Global Plant Council Prize: “AI, Sensors and Robotics in Plant Phenotyping and Precision Agriculture, Volume II”, led by Dr. Yongliang Qiao (University of Adelaide), Dr. João Valente (Wageningen University), Dr. Yu Yiang (Cornell Agritech), Dr. Zhao Zhang (China Agricultural University), Dr. Donjian He (Northwest A&F University), and Dr Daobilige Su (China Agricultural University).
Tobacco plants have been engineered to manufacture an alluring perfume of insect sex pheromones, which could be used to confuse would-be pests looking for love and reduce the need for pesticides.
Insights into gene and protein control systems that regulate the use of nitrogen by plant roots could help develop crops that require less nitrogenous fertilizers to produce acceptable yields.
Aging is a part of life, and plants are no exception. The life cycle of a plant is felt in genebanks that store plant materials, such as seeds. Plant materials in genebanks may be accessed by farmers, researchers, conservationists, and others for breeding. But for a genebank to provide useful germplasm to growers, the seeds stored there must be alive when harvested. And as the stored seeds start to age, fewer and fewer of them live long enough to germinate. So, genebanks must continuously monitor stored seeds to ensure they haven’t aged beyond their ‘expiration date’ and lose ability to germinate.
“Have you ever wondered about life on a leaf?” A researcher asks a simple question, but it’s one well worth investigation. The aboveground part of plants where microbes reside, or the phyllosphere, represents the largest environmental surface area on the plant. Much of this area is grown as cultivated agriculture, and understanding the interactions between plants and the microorganisms that live on their surfaces may help us develop agricultural management practices that can increase crop productivity and resilience. In a newly published study peer into the complexities of life on a leaf.
Understanding the role of a key protein in plant immunity could inform the development of crops that are resistant to multiple pathogens.
Up to 30 per cent of crop yields worldwide each year are lost to pathogenic infection. Understanding how to make plants more resilient to infection is vital for future food security. Now researchers have uncovered the critical role of a linker histone protein, called H1, during plant immune responses to bacterial and fungal infections.
“Previous studies on Arabidopsis plants revealed that H1 is important for healthy growth and development,” says Arsheed Sheikh, who worked on the project with Heribert Hirt and co-workers. “Linker histones are known to regulate infection in animals, but their role in plant infection and immunity has never been explored.”
In animal and plant cells, fundamental units called nucleosomes contain DNA wrapped around a protein complex, and are critical for regulating genetic information. The individual nucleosomes are connected by linker DNA. Linker histone H1 holds the exit/entry site of linker DNA like a clip, thus regulating the unwinding and flexibility of nucleosomes.
“In plants like Arabidopsis, we find three isoforms of H1,” says Sheikh. “Normally, H1 suppresses gene expression — this includes the defense genes of the immune system.”
The team explored mutant Arabidopsis plants with all three H1 isoforms knocked out. They grew wild-type and mutant plants under controlled conditions and then infected them with either the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae or the fungal pathogen Botrytis cinerea. After three days, they compared the severity of infection between the different groups of plants.
“The mutant plants were resistant to both bacterial and fungal infection when compared to wild-type plants,” says Sheikh. “The knockout mutant had higher levels of defense gene expression and the immune response hormone salicylic acid.”
Probing H1’s role further, however, the team were surprised to find that the mutant plants lacked defense-priming ability. In other words, when subjected to a small dose of a pathogen some time after initial infection, the plants showed no enhanced immune response. Like vaccination, priming a plant with a small pathogen dose can boost its immunity. The lack of defense priming in the mutant plants suggests H1 plays a critical role in priming.
“This fundamental knowledge could help generate smart crops that are resistant to multiple infectious agents simultaneously,” says Hirt. “However, this study also serves as a cautionary warning that it is important to study both the direct and indirect effects of a given mutation in genetically modified plants.”
Read the paper: Nucleic Acid Research
Article source: KAUST
Image: Illustration of the model plant Arabidopsis. The genetic material is present as chromatin, which consists of DNA wrapped around a histone protein complex in cells. The linker histone H1 modulates the plant’s immunity against pathogens. Credit 2023 KAUST; Arsheed Sheikh.
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