Plants perform miracles on a daily basis. They take carbon dioxide from the air and turn it into chemicals with the help of the sun.
The beginning material for a lot of useful medications, such as aspirin and morphine, are some of the aromatic compounds. Many of the chemicals come from fossil fuels because it is hard to get enough plants to make enough of them. Our bodies can't make others, so they can only be obtained through our food.
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have found a way to release the brakes on plants' production of aromatic amino acids. The genetic change caused the plants to absorb more carbon dioxide than they normally would.
If scientists could add a trait like this to crops, it would help them produce more chemicals and reduce greenhouse gases.
One of the major plant pathways that transform carbon into food, fuel, and materials is the aromatic amino acid pathway. For the first time, we have found a way to regulate the key control knob plants use to turn up production.
The findings of Maeda and his team were published in Science Advances.
Plants normally build in natural brakes to the process of making aromatic amino acids. The whole system grinds to a halt when plants are able to produce enough.
The model plant Arabidopsis has been found to have less sensitive brakes due to the fact that the plant's genes have been altered. The plant doesn't know when to stop and keep making these compounds.
The scientists were surprised to find that the plants took in more carbon dioxide to fuel their growth.
Increased photosynthesis does two things. Adding more energy to operate this pathway is one way to do that. More carbon building blocks are needed to make aromatic chemicals.
Lignin is an energy dense compound that can be found in the cell wall.
There is a small mustard plant. The model in the lab isn't worth anything. The co-author of the book wants to test the same changes in crops and plants that take in a lot of carbon dioxide.
The brakes we identified are very similar to plants. "Expanding this discovery to crops opens up a lot of possibilities, such as enriching our food with essential nutrients or improving bioenergy production, while capturing more carbon dioxide from atmosphere to slow down the global warming."
More information: Ryo Yokoyama et al, Point mutations that boost aromatic amino acid production and CO2 assimilation in plants, Science Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abo3416 Journal information: Science Advances
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