Genetic switch: How does it help to control plant growth?

Shreyas bhat, DY Patil School of biotechnology and bioinformatics

Researchers have finally discovered the mechanism by which plants respond to light and this mechanism can be modified to enhance food growth. This would eventually help in increasing the crop yield for feeding our growing population as there is a decrease in agricultural land over the years. Thus, this novel discovery is expected to make farming more efficient.

This study on genetic switch was conducted by UC Riverside and has been recently published in the journal Nature. Plant growth is highly influenced by light as it remains to be one of the primary factors for proper growth and development. 

A protein called phytochrome B enables the plant to sense light and temperature. The protein serves as a messenger as it passes information to the cell which eventually results in a change of genome and plant response. Phytochrome B is a protein that cannot directly interact with the plant DNA. The cells depend on a different type of protein family known as PIFs. The activity of these 8 proteins PIFs is controlled by Phytochrome B along with controlling PIFs accumulation in plant cells. Researchers have also learned that as phytochrome B is activated by the light it inhibits the accumulation of PIFs in the plant cells.

As the accumulation of more PIFs in the plant cells will maximize the response, thus phytochrome B regulates the no. of PIFs to slow down their activity and response of the cells. Researchers have also discovered crucial components of a plant’s light response. PIFs have 2 components: one part binds to the gene and the other part activates the gene. The study has found the accurate location of this activator region.

To identify the part which is responsible for activation, researchers separated the entire protein and tested these components to activate the genes one component was found to activate the gene. Researchers then changed the amino acid group on the PIF to observe how the plant responded. This would help us to locate the activator region and also to study the structural and molecular components of that region.

 This technique allows us to remarkably identify similarities between the mechanism of PIFs in plants and tumor suppressor protein in humans. As the gene activation mechanism in yeast, plant, and animal is similar to one another, the organisms in the three kingdoms having similar ancestors, also have a similar mechanism of gene transfer. This discovery will also help researchers to control light and temperature genes and help us to control or regulate the gene activation mechanism.

The primary idea behind the regulation of the genetic switch is to increase crop yield and increase agricultural efficiency. For example, if we place 2 crops close to each other, seeing competition the plant will channel its energy to grow toward the light source and less energy towards increasing the leaf size and seed production. The main idea behind the regulation of genetic switch is to program the plant to ignore the competition and channelize its energy towards seed production and leaf size this will eventually increase crop yield per capita land. 

Researchers demonstrated that decreasing the plant PIFs activity decreases the growth of stem and promotes seed and leaf production. These are just the first two parameters that are being studied more such studies will expand our understanding of plant growth mechanism and further help us in building a sustainable and efficient agricultural sector.  

Also read: Cannabis intoxication detection by using smartphone sensor data

Reference:

1. Chen, M., Chory, J., & Fankhauser, C. (2004). Light signal transduction in higher plants. Annual Review of Genetics, 38(1), 87–117. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.genet.38.072902.092259

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Author info:

Shreyas bhat is currently pursuing an MSc in Biotechnology from DY Patil School of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics. His area of interest includes quantum physics, astronomy, biosciences which do not generally seem to match with his qualification but science, in general, has a greater pull and thus, he is always open to exploring various branches of science.