The depth and shape of a plant’s root system affect how efficient it is at pulling different resources out of the soil. Synthetic genetic circuits designed to rewire gene expression in plant roots may be used to change the way they grow.
In this case, they used those logic gates to specify which types of cells were expressing certain genes, allowing them to adjust the number of branches in the root system without changing the rest of the plant.
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To achieve fine-scale control over plant behavior, Brophy and her colleagues built synthetic DNA that essentially works like a computer code with logic gates guiding the decision-making process. “We’re making the engineering of plants much more precise.” A programming code for plantsĬurrent genetically modified crop varieties use relatively simple, imprecise systems that cause all of their cells to express the genes necessary to, say, resist herbicides or pests. “Our synthetic genetic circuits are going to allow us to build very specific root systems or very specific leaf structures to see what is optimal for the challenging environmental conditions that we know are coming,” Brophy said. Their work is the first step in designing crops that are better able to collect water and nutrients from the soil and provides a framework for designing, testing, and improving synthetic genetic circuits for other applications in plants. In a paper published recently in Science, they used these tools to grow plants with modified root structures.
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Jennifer Brophy, an assistant professor of bioengineering, and her colleagues have designed a series of synthetic genetic circuits that allow them to control the decisions made by different types of plant cells. Researchers at Stanford University are working on ways to manipulate biological processes in plants to help them grow more efficiently and effectively in a variety of conditions. When the correct combinations of inputs are delivered to leaves, they fluoresce green, and the fluorescence can be measured using a plate reader. The activity of synthetic genetic circuits that process the presence or absence of specific signals in plant leaves was measured in high throughput by placing leaf punches in 96-well plates.