The structure of plant roots can be controlled by geneticists at the university.
Researchers hope to reprogram crops to be more resistant to climate change by manipulating the root system.
The shallower the root system, the better the crop's absorption of phosphorus. The deeper the root system, the better.
"Our synthetic genetic circuits are going to allow us to build very specific root systems or very specific leaf structures to see what's optimal for the challenging environmental conditions that we know are coming," says bioengineers.
The engineering of plants is being made more precise.
Plants could potentially be reprogramed much faster than they can be otherwise adapted and more precisely than they can be cultivated for.
Researchers used a tobacco plant's cells to create a synthetic genetic circuit that works in another plant.
The genetic circuit is similar to a computer code with logic gates. The gate can only be entered with the right input values.
Similar to electrical circuits with switches, these biological circuits are also used to power phones.
Synthetic transcriptional 'promoters' that are specific to certain plant tissues are the only ones that can open these gates in a cell. Researchers may be able to change how the plant grows by controlling which cells express which genes.
Researchers were able to manipulate the growth of a small weedy plant when they created a series of synthetic logic gates for a singlegene.
Researchers altered the density of branches in the plant's root system by changing the expression of a single genes.
A previous study showed how small changes in the root development gene can affect root hair development and other root properties.
The researchers used a tissue specific promoter that is only on in the root stem cells to express the slr-1 mutants.
The authors are going to test their reprogrammed genetic circuits on a crop that shows promise as a fuel. Sorghum's ability to absorb water is one of the team's goals.
The possibilities are endless if this genetic technique works. Carefully tuning synthetic genetic circuits will be required to reprogram crops.
"We have modern varieties of crops that have lost their ability to grow in certain areas," says Dinneny.
The logic gates that control root branching could be used to create a circuit that takes into account both the nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations in the soil and then creates an output that is optimal for those conditions.
The study was published in a scientific journal.
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