Articles from CropBitechUpdate: photosynthesis & drought
CropBiotechUpdate
Max Planck Researchers Engineer Key Enzyme in Photosynthesis
http://www.isaaa.org/kc/ cropbiotechupdate/article/ default.asp?ID=16044
The researchers, led by Dr. Manajit Hayer-Hartl, generated functional plant Rubisco in a bacterial host by simultaneously expressing plant chaperones and Rubisco in the same cells. This enabled the scientists to understand the complex assembly pathway of Rubisco, and also modify the Rubisco gene to improve its properties. Once they have obtained a Rubisco variant with a desired trait, they can insert the modified gene back into the plant cells, a key-step towards improving photosynthesis through Rubisco engineering.
"The bacterial expression system resembles an assembly line for cars. Whereas previously, every optimized variant of Rubisco had to be painstakingly expressed in a transgenic plant, which takes a year or more to generate - like building a car by hand - we can now make hundreds or thousands of Rubisco variants in days or weeks. It is like building cars in an automated assembly line," explains Dr. Hayer-Hartl.
For more details, read the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry news release.
http://www.isaaa.org/kc/cropbiotechupdate/article/default.asp?ID=16045
Scientists from the Canadian Light Source (CLS) have teamed up with researchers from the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) to develop a new technique to examine drought tolerance in wheat. Led by Chithra Karunakaran and Karen Tanino, the team developed a simple non-destructive method to screen hundreds of wheat leaf samples in a day, reducing the time and cost associated with traditional breeding programs to select varieties for drought tolerance.
Using the wax of a flag leaf as their test subject, the research team examined the morphological characteristics of the plant, as well as the chemical signatures, comparing the drought-resistant Stettler wheat variety to the Superb, which is more vulnerable to drought conditions.
With the help of the bright light produced at the CLS, Karunakaran and her team were the first to link micro and macronutrients in the leaves for their ability to tolerate drought, finding higher levels of zinc in the drought-resistant Stettler. These results have significant implications for future breeding programs, and also raise questions about the role of zinc in fertilizer.
For more details, read the CLS News.