Acollaborative team of researchers from the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, the University of Florida, Gainesville and the University of Iowa have recently developed groundbreaking tools that allow grasses -- including major grain crops like corn -- to act as living biosensors capable of detecting minute amounts of chemicals in the field.
Principal Investigators Dmitri Nusinow and Malia Gehan led the effort to engineer grasses that produce a visible purple pigment, anthocyanin, in response to specific chemical cues. When paired with advanced imaging and analytical systems, those plants can report extremely low levels of chemical exposure, pollution or other adverse conditions that may impact crop and human health.
Their findings, "Remote Sensing of Endogenous Pigmentation by Inducible Synthetic Circuits in Grasses," were recently published in the Plant Biotechnology Journal.
The research team asked, “What if plants could alert farmers to adverse conditions or unwanted chemicals?”
Although researchers have begun exploring plant-based biosensors, most tools have been developed in dicot species such as Arabidopsis thaliana. Grass species -- monocots -- have lagged behind despite being the foundation of global grain production. Plant pigments, such as carotenoids, betalains and anthocyanins are being adapted as non-invasive visual reporters to monitor gene expression in plants.
Nusinow and Gehan successfully adapted a ligand-inducible genetic circuit that activates the plant’s own anthocyanin pathway in the C4 model grass Setaria viridis. Those new tools could be used to trigger grasses like corn to make a purple pigment, anthocyanin, when exposed to specific chemicals.
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