Creating Drought-Tolerant Plants
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Academic
Ina New Study Botanists Pioneered a New Strategy forReprogramming Plants to Do Better During Droughts
It began with the plants' natural technique fordealing with drought: theyproduce a hormone called abscisic acid (ABA) when they don't have enough water.ABA closes a plant's stomata (cells that let carbon dioxide in and out), preventing water loss. In2009, Sean Cutler and his team at the University of California, Riverside, identified the proteins in charge of those responses,as Nature News explains.
But, as Cutlertold the Los Angeles Times ,simply spraying plants with ABA to prevent water lossis tooexpensive, and the compound is sofragile that it's "not practical for use for agriculture." So he and his teamhit on another solution—genetically modifying plants to respond to a fungicide called mandipropamid. By tweaking the plant's protein receptors, Cutler's team was able to effectively reprogram the plant to react to mandipropamid, ahuman-controlled stimulus, in the same way it would to its own naturally produced ABA. They had created, in short, asort of on/off switch for a plant's drought tolerance.
Though Cutler and his team are optimistic about the potential of their drought switch, others aren't so sure. Botanist John Passiouratells Nature that he's worried about the technique's impact on plant temperatures. He wonders if the technique will be more advantageous than technologies thatmodulate a plant's nitrogen use instead.
The new discovery is the latest in a crop of innovations that could change the way plants respond to drought. Fromfungusto"thermostat" genestobacterial priming, researchers are full of ideas on how to make plants tolerate lower water levels. As with any GMO research,not everyone's so surethis is a good idea. Andthere is evidencethat plants bred by conventional means to resist drought are just as good at the job—if not better—than genetically engineered ones. But, with worsening drought looming in the future, it's hard to dismissany new ideafor creating aretruly drought-tolerant plant.
Source: Smithsonian.com
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