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Unlocking Plant Secrets: How Microbial Cell Factories Could Illuminate Underexplored Plant Molecules
- Researchers at the University of California San Diego have developed a groundbreaking method for producing plant hormones called strigolactones, using engineered microbial cell factories including E. coli bacteria and yeast. The hormones are crucial to controlling plant development and mediating interactions with parasitic plants. This method is not only cost-effective, but can also be used to explore molecular intricacies of strigolactones never thought possible before.
- Traditional extraction methods of strigolactones have required up to 1,000 liters of plant xylem sap per extraction, raising ecological concerns by destroying numerous trees. This new method, which produces over 125 times the amounts of hormones previously achieved, circumvents those limitations.
- Beyond enhancing agricultural sustainability, as the hormones are important in this field, researchers are also excited to explore the complex chemical landscape of plant hormones to set the stage for potential future agronomy practices. Through a deeper understanding of hormones and their impact on growth and survival strategies, agronomists can devise innovative techniques to create crop resilience against environmental stressors while minimizing ecological footprints.
- The study also highlights how microbe-based systems can be utilized to unravel plant signaling mysteries and signalling pathways, helping researchers explore how plants adapt and survive in fluctuating environments, while minimizing environmental concerns.
- The researchers involved in the groundbreaking study are hopeful their collaborative and synthetic biology approaches will reveal other secrets in the plant world and, in the future, help shape innovations that tackle environmental challenges while improving global sustainability.
- This interdisciplinary study teams multiple institutions and exemplifies the global urgency of advancements in plant science, as society faces the dual challenges of food security and environmental sustainability. The intersection of synthetic biology, genomic research, and plant physiology has produced groundbreaking techniques that promise to unveil the secrets of plant signaling, paving the way for innovations that could significantly impact global sustainability efforts.
- The study was published in the prestigious journal Science and promises to shift paradigms in how scientists understand plant signaling and hormone production. Previous methods have yielded only small amounts of strigolactones, leading to primarily speculative findings regarding their chemistry and ecological functions.
- The new method's ability to produce larger quantities than previously achievable marks a significant milestone in the field. Researchers can now explore molecular intricacies of strigolactones in detail, opening opportunities to uncover new discoveries never before thought possible.
- The team focused on gene families related to cytochrome P450 enzymes, which play key roles in the biosynthetic pathways of strigolactones. This focus allowed the researchers to identify and express sister genes, CYP722A and CYP722B, revealing their potential for significantly yielding various biologically relevant strigolactones.
- One particularly noteworthy compound that emerged from this research is 16-hydroxy-carlactonic acid (16-OH-CLA). This newfound capacity to produce substantial amounts of 16-OH-CLA enabled the team to elucidate its precise structure for the very first time, offering a new perspective on the roles strigolactones may play in plant signaling and stress responses.
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