The world’s crop productivity is stagnating whereas population growth, rising affluence, and mandates for biofuels put increasing demands on agriculture. Meanwhile, demand for increasing cropland ...competes with equally crucial global sustainability and environmental protection needs. Addressing this looming agricultural crisis will be one of our greatest scientific challenges in the coming decades, and success will require substantial improvements at many levels. We assert that increasing the efficiency and productivity of photosynthesis in crop plants will be essential if this grand challenge is to be met. Here, we explore an array of prospective redesigns of plant systems at various scales, all aimed at increasing crop yields through improved photosynthetic efficiency and performance. Prospects range from straightforward alterations, already supported by preliminary evidence of feasibility, to substantial redesigns that are currently only conceptual, but that may be enabled by new developments in synthetic biology. Although some proposed redesigns are certain to face obstacles that will require alternate routes, the efforts should lead to new discoveries and technical advances with important impacts on the global problem of crop productivity and bioenergy production.
Technological developments have revolutionized measurements on plant genotypes and phenotypes, leading to routine production of large, complex data sets. This has led to increased efforts to extract ...meaning from these measurements and to integrate various data sets. Concurrently, machine learning has rapidly evolved and is now widely applied in science in general and in plant genotyping and phenotyping in particular. Here, we review the application of machine learning in the context of plant science and plant breeding. We focus on analyses at different phenotype levels, from biochemical to yield, and in connecting genotypes to these. In this way, we illustrate how machine learning offers a suite of methods that enable researchers to find meaningful patterns in relevant plant data.
Plant Biotechnology; Plant Bioinformatics; Artificial Intelligence
The wide occurrence of Cd-contaminated rice in southern China poses significant public health risk and deserves immediate action, which arises primarily from extensive metal (including Cd) ...contamination of paddies with the fast expansion of nonferrous metal mining and smelting activities. Accumulation of Cd in rice grains can be reduced by removing Cd from the contaminated paddy soils, reducing its bioavailability, and controlling its uptake by rice plants. Although a range of measures can be taken to rehabilitate Cd-contaminated lands, including soil replacement and turnover, chemical washing, and phytoremediation, they are either too expensive and/or too slow. Various amendment materials, including lime, animal manures, and biochar, can be used to immobilize Cd in soils, but such fixation approach can only temporarily reduce Cd availability to rice uptake. Cultivation of alternative crops with low Cd accumulation in edible plant parts is impractical on large scales due to extensive contamination and food security concerns in southern China. Transgenic techniques can help develop rice cultivars with low Cd accumulation in grains, but little public acceptance is expected for such products. As an alternative, selection and development of low-Cd rice varieties and hybrids through plant biotechnology and breeding, particularly, by integration of marker-assisted selection (MAS) with traditional breeding, could be a practical and acceptable option that would allow continued rice production in soils with high bioavailability of Cd. Plant biotechnology and breeding can also help develop Cd-hyperaccumulating rice varieties, which can greatly facilitate phytoremediation of contaminated paddies. To eliminate the long-term risk of Cd entering the food chain, soils contaminated by Cd should be cleaned up when cost-effective remediation measures are available.
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•Cd-contaminated rice poses major food safety and public health concerns in S. China•Cd pollution of paddies resulted primarily from nonferrous metal mining and smelting•Removal of Cd from soil is challenging, while its phytoavailability can be controlled•Plant biotechnology and breeding can accelerate development of low-Cd rice cultivars•Growing low-Cd rice in contaminated paddies can greatly reduce dietary exposure of Cd
Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats and CRISPR‐associated protein‐9 (CRISPR‐Cas9) can be used as an efficient tool for genome editing in potato (Solanum tuberosum). From both a ...scientific and a regulatory perspective, it is beneficial if integration of DNA in the potato genome is avoided. We have implemented a DNA‐free genome editing method, using delivery of CRISPR‐Cas9 ribonucleoproteins (RNPs) to potato protoplasts, by targeting the gene encoding a granule bound starch synthase (GBSS, EC 2.4.1.242). The RNP method was directly implemented using previously developed protoplast isolation, transfection and regeneration protocols without further adjustments. Cas9 protein was preassembled with RNA produced either synthetically or by in vitro transcription. RNP with synthetically produced RNA (cr‐RNP) induced mutations, i.e. indels, at a frequency of up to 9%, with all mutated lines being transgene‐free. A mutagenesis frequency of 25% of all regenerated shoots was found when using RNP with in vitro transcriptionally produced RNA (IVT–RNP). However, more than 80% of the shoots with confirmed mutations had unintended inserts in the cut site, which was in the same range as when using DNA delivery. The inserts originated both from DNA template remnants from the in vitro transcription, and from chromosomal potato DNA. In 2–3% of the regenerated shoots from the RNP‐experiments, mutations were induced in all four alleles resulting in a complete knockout of the GBSS enzyme function.
This experiment assessed the biochemical changes in fenugreek plants exposed to gamma radiation. Two pot experiments were carried out during two growing seasons of 2015 and 2016. Seeds were subjected ...to five doses of gamma irradiation (25, 50, 100, 200 and 400 Gy) and were immediately planted into soil pots in a greenhouse. The experimental analysis was performed in M1 and M2 generations. Significant differences between irradiated and control plants were detected for most studied characters in M1 and M2 generations. It was demonstrated that low doses of gamma irradiation led to gradually increases in growth, yield characters, leaf soluble protein concomitantly with increases in the contents of phenolic and flavonoids compounds particularly at 100 Gy. These changes were accompanied by a substantial increase in ascorbic acid, α-tocopherol and retinol contents. Proline content was increased under all doses of gamma rays in M1 generation and the highest amount of proline was obtained at 200 Gy with visible decrease in M2 generation under the same dose. Meanwhile, the highest dose of gamma radiation (400 Gy) decreased all the studied parameters in both mutagenic generations as compared with control plants. In addition, gamma irradiation doses induced changes in DNA profile on using five primers and caused the appearance and disappearance of DNA polymorphic bands with variation in their intensity. These findings confirm the effectiveness of relatively low doses of gamma rays on improving the physiological and biochemical criteria of fenugreek plants.
In the face of rapid population growth worldwide, humanity's need for plant and animal products is increasing. In this regard, the organizations in charge of production make production and ...consumption forecasts for the future and try to accelerate the work aimed at increasing production. There are various ways of increasing production. The first of these is the improvement of cultivation techniques, the expansion of irrigated agricultural areas, and the effective control of diseases and pests. The second is to find and produce high-yielding new varieties with appropriate breeding methods. Mutations can be used directly and indirectly in plant breeding. The use of mutations in direct plant breeding gains importance when improving one or two characteristics of a variety with good adaptability is desired. The present study discusses the importance, advantages, and disadvantages of mutation breeding in horticultural plants. It evaluates future mutation breeding and new biotechnological approaches.
Transcription factors (TFs) play a significant role in signal transduction networks spanning the perception of a stress signal and the expression of corresponding stress-responsive genes. TFs are ...multi-functional proteins that may simultaneously control numerous pathways during stresses in plants—this makes them powerful tools for the manipulation of regulatory and stress-responsive pathways. In recent years, the structure-function relationships of numerous plant TFs involved in drought and associated stresses have been defined, which prompted devising practical strategies for engineering plants with enhanced stress tolerance. Vast data have emerged on purposely basic leucine zipper (bZIP), WRKY, homeodomain-leucine zipper (HD-Zip), myeloblastoma (MYB), drought-response elements binding proteins/C-repeat binding factor (DREB/CBF), shine (SHN), and wax production-like (WXPL) TFs that reflect the understanding of their 3D structure and how the structure relates to function. Consequently, this information is useful in the tailored design of variant TFs that enhances our understanding of their functional states, such as oligomerization, post-translational modification patterns, protein-protein interactions, and their abilities to recognize downstream target DNA sequences. Here, we report on the progress of TFs based on their interaction pathway participation in stress-responsive networks, and pinpoint strategies and applications for crops and the impact of these strategies for improving plant stress tolerance.
Malaria is still an eminent threat to major parts of the world population mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. Researchers around the world continuously seek novel solutions to either eliminate or treat the ...disease. Artemisinin, isolated from the Chinese medicinal herb
, is the active ingredient in artemisinin-based combination therapies used to treat the disease. However, naturally artemisinin is produced in small quantities, which leads to a shortage of global supply. Due to its complex structure, it is difficult chemically synthesize. Thus to date,
remains as the main commercial source of artemisinin. Current advances in genetic and metabolic engineering drives to more diverse approaches and developments on improving
production of artemisinin, both in
and in other plants. In this review, we describe efforts in bioengineering to obtain a higher production of artemisinin in
and stable heterologous
systems. The current progress and advancements provides hope for significantly improved production in plants.
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