New plant cell platform accelerates the push for self-fertilizing crops
Meile L, Alonso-Tolo G, Ferreiro-Eiras Z, Jiang X, Burén S
Nitrogen Fixation
Nitrogen fertilizer is the single biggest recurring cost in most vegetable gardens, and this research edges crops closer to pulling their own nitrogen straight from the air, the way clover and beans already do.
Most plants can't grab nitrogen from the air on their own, so farmers and gardeners have to apply fertilizer. Scientists built a rapid lab system using tiny thale cress cells to test dozens of gene combinations at once, looking for the right set that could eventually let crops make their own nitrogen. They found several ancient microbial proteins that work inside plant cells and proved they can run six genes together in a single experiment, a key step toward that goal.
Key Findings
The platform generates 100 g of transgenic plant cells within 2 weeks using no specialized equipment or consumables
At least 6 genes can be stacked and expressed simultaneously from a single construct
Multiple archaeal NifB protein variants were identified as compatible with plant cell expression and solubility, advancing nitrogenase engineering
chevron_right Technical Summary
Researchers built a fast, no-special-equipment method to engineer Arabidopsis plant cells with up to six genes at once, then used it to screen ancient microbial proteins that could help plants fix their own nitrogen from the air.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
A high-throughput heterologous expression platform for plant synthetic biology based on Arabidopsis suspension cells.
Efficient heterologous expression platforms are essential for plant synthetic biology, particularly for engineering complex multigene pathways. Here, we establish a high-throughput system for trans...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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Arabidopsis thaliana, the thale cress, mouse-ear cress or arabidopsis, is a small plant from the mustard family (Brassicaceae), native to Eurasia and Africa. Commonly found along the shoulders of roads and in disturbed land, it is generally considered a weed.