Improving Crops Through Epigenetics

University Communications Author

11/18/2014 Added

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Manipulating how plants express their genes promises higher crop yields and better performance under drought or other environmental stress. University of Nebraska-Lincoln plant scientist Sally Mackenzie is harnessing her breakthrough in epigenomics to improve crops important to developing countries.

Read more about this and other University of Nebraska-Lincoln research in the 2013-2014 UNL Research Report. See Tapping Breakthrough to Help African Farmers: http://research.unl.edu/annualreport/2014/tapping-breakthrough-to-help-african-farmers/

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[00:00:00.790]When a plant is under stress, it transmits a signal that warns future generations
[00:00:05.924]what's coming.
[00:00:07.524]That chronic stress will be a signal that a plant could transmit to its progeny;
[00:00:13.159]"be ready for high light, be ready for excessive heat, be ready for drought."
[00:00:17.753]University of Nebraska-Lincoln plant scientist Sally Mackenzie studies these
[00:00:22.403]epigenetic signals.
[00:00:24.436]What we're trying to learn is a language, the language that plants speak when
[00:00:28.085]they try to convey stress, when they try to protect themselves from stress and
[00:00:32.573]when they try to enhance their growth performance under stress conditions.
[00:00:36.317]By grafting a stressed tomato plant to another segment that isn't under stress,
[00:00:41.548]Mackenzie isolates and studies the signals.
[00:00:44.335]And then biochemically we can isolate that signal and understand how one segment
[00:00:49.066]of a plant communicates information to another about stress.
[00:00:52.983]Once we understand those signals, then we understand how to modify plants to be
[00:00:57.426]prepared for those signals.
[00:00:59.472]Mackenzie and her colleagues modify plants epigenetically and change their
[00:01:03.866]characteristics. A specialized machine measures factors like growth.
[00:01:09.000]So we can be extremely quantitative in knowing exactly just what kind of changes
[00:01:12.767]we've made and how the plant has responded.
[00:01:16.872]Mackenzie's research attracted the attention of the Bill & Melinda Gates
[00:01:20.273]Foundation.
[00:01:21.377]A nearly three million dollar grant will help develop crops that grow well in
[00:01:26.295]places like Africa.
[00:01:27.737]And right now we're trying to learn different ways to introduce our little
[00:01:31.144]stress signal, and we're trying to find ways to enhance crop performance
[00:01:34.931]as a consequence of that stress signal.
[00:01:37.064]Improvements that enhance plant growth can also be applied to crops grown in the
[00:01:41.454]United States.
[00:01:42.997]It's research that will help feed a rapidly growing population faced
[00:01:47.329]with diminishing resources.

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Improving Crops Through Epigenetics

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