Researchers uncover biological circuit that protects plants from extreme conditions
A new study shows that plants use their circadian clocks to regulate responses to changes in water and salinity, offering a new avenue for creating drought-resistant crops.
Researchers at California’s Keck School of Medicine of USC found that plants use their circadian clocks to respond to changes in external water and salt levels throughout the day. That same circuitry—an elegant feedback loop controlled by a protein known as ABF3—also helps plants adapt to extreme conditions such as drought.
“The bottom line is plants are stuck in place. They can’t run around and grab a drink of water. They can’t move into the shade when they want to or away from soil that has excess salt. Because of that, they’ve evolved to use their circadian clocks to exquisitely measure and adapt to their environment,” said the study’s senior author, Steve A. Kay.
The findings point to two new approaches that may help boost crop resilience. For one, agricultural breeders can search and select for naturally occurring genetic diversity in the circadian ABF3 circuit that gives plants a slight edge in responding to water and salinity stress. Even a small increase in resilience could substantially improve crop yield on a large scale.
Kay and his colleagues also plan to explore a genetic modification approach, using CRISPR to engineer genes that promote ABF3 in order to design highly drought-resistant plants.
“This could be a significant breakthrough in thinking about how to modulate crop plants to be more drought resistant,” Kay said.
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