One gene to tackle all stresses


Different types of stress can affect the life of plants including that induced by pathogens (biotic stress) and that caused by non-living entities such as drought, osmotic stress, chemical or salt stress and so on (abiotic stress). For a long time, researchers have been trying to understand the genetics of stress, and now a collaboration of scientists from Bengaluru’s National Centre of Biological Sciences (NCBS) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has discovered a single gene whose expression controls the plants’ response to both biotic and abiotic stress. This finding can be used to engineer plants that can withstand, for instance, drought or bacterial infections. The research has been published in Plant Molecular Biology.

Unrelated stress

“Previous studies at best identified genes that provide resistance to diverse abiotic stresses that are connected physiologically. For example, drought and salt stress are related and one single gene could provide resistance to both,” says P.V. Shivaprasad, professor at NCBS. The novelty of this research is that it proposes that by expressing a single gene, it is possible to develop resistance in plants to various diverse and unrelated types of stress....Read more

 

Source web page:The Hindu


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