Geneticists create tobacco plants with "eternal youth".
Typically tobacco plants have quite a short life, around 4 months of
growth followed by blooming, flowering and death. They usually reach a
height of around 1.5 to 2 metres tall before older leaves begin to
yellow and wither and flowering happens. One gene appears to be
responsible for the transition from blooming to flowering, and by switching
it off researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology
and Applied Ecology IME (Münster, Germany) have created seemingly
immortal (and continually growing) plants.
"The first of our
tobacco plants is now almost eight years old but it still just keeps on
growing and growing,” Dirk Prüfer, one of the researchers. "Although we
regularly cut it, it's six-and-a-half meters [21 ft.] tall. If our
greenhouse were a bit higher, it would probably be even bigger. Its stem
is already ten centimeters in diameter." The team have named their
modified species "forever young".
The researchers were able to
create these huge changes by altering the gene's expression and then
reinserting it back into the plant using a bacterium. They hope that
this technique can be used to generate larger amounts of biomass and are
currently working on developing a potato plant with a team in Japan.
Results such as this hold great potential benefits in creating more
foodstuffs and plant-based materials, and the inability to flower means
they cannot spread to unwanted areas.
Photo: Dirk Prüfer, Gundula Noll (right) and Lena Harig (left) with some of their plants. Credit to Fraunhofer IME.
http://www.livescience.com/
http://phys.org/news/
Geneticists create tobacco plants with "eternal youth".
Typically tobacco plants have quite a short life, around 4 months of growth followed by blooming, flowering and death. They usually reach a height of around 1.5 to 2 metres tall before older leaves begin to yellow and wither and flowering happens. One gene appears to be responsible for the transition from blooming to flowering, and by switching it off researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME (Münster, Germany) have created seemingly immortal (and continually growing) plants.
"The first of our tobacco plants is now almost eight years old but it still just keeps on growing and growing,” Dirk Prüfer, one of the researchers. "Although we regularly cut it, it's six-and-a-half meters [21 ft.] tall. If our greenhouse were a bit higher, it would probably be even bigger. Its stem is already ten centimeters in diameter." The team have named their modified species "forever young".
The researchers were able to create these huge changes by altering the gene's expression and then reinserting it back into the plant using a bacterium. They hope that this technique can be used to generate larger amounts of biomass and are currently working on developing a potato plant with a team in Japan. Results such as this hold great potential benefits in creating more foodstuffs and plant-based materials, and the inability to flower means they cannot spread to unwanted areas.
Photo: Dirk Prüfer, Gundula Noll (right) and Lena Harig (left) with some of their plants. Credit to Fraunhofer IME.
http://www.livescience.com/
http://phys.org/news/
Typically tobacco plants have quite a short life, around 4 months of growth followed by blooming, flowering and death. They usually reach a height of around 1.5 to 2 metres tall before older leaves begin to yellow and wither and flowering happens. One gene appears to be responsible for the transition from blooming to flowering, and by switching it off researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME (Münster, Germany) have created seemingly immortal (and continually growing) plants.
"The first of our tobacco plants is now almost eight years old but it still just keeps on growing and growing,” Dirk Prüfer, one of the researchers. "Although we regularly cut it, it's six-and-a-half meters [21 ft.] tall. If our greenhouse were a bit higher, it would probably be even bigger. Its stem is already ten centimeters in diameter." The team have named their modified species "forever young".
The researchers were able to create these huge changes by altering the gene's expression and then reinserting it back into the plant using a bacterium. They hope that this technique can be used to generate larger amounts of biomass and are currently working on developing a potato plant with a team in Japan. Results such as this hold great potential benefits in creating more foodstuffs and plant-based materials, and the inability to flower means they cannot spread to unwanted areas.
Photo: Dirk Prüfer, Gundula Noll (right) and Lena Harig (left) with some of their plants. Credit to Fraunhofer IME.
http://www.livescience.com/
http://phys.org/news/
![Geneticists create tobacco plants with "eternal youth".
Typically tobacco plants have quite a short life, around 4 months of growth followed by blooming, flowering and death. They usually reach a height of around 1.5 to 2 metres tall before older leaves begin to yellow and wither and flowering happens. One gene appears to be responsible for the transition from blooming to flowering, and by switching it off researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME (Münster, Germany) have created seemingly immortal (and continually growing) plants.
"The first of our tobacco plants is now almost eight years old but it still just keeps on growing and growing,” Dirk Prüfer, one of the researchers. "Although we regularly cut it, it's six-and-a-half meters [21 ft.] tall. If our greenhouse were a bit higher, it would probably be even bigger. Its stem is already ten centimeters in diameter." The team have named their modified species "forever young".
The researchers were able to create these huge changes by altering the gene's expression and then reinserting it back into the plant using a bacterium. They hope that this technique can be used to generate larger amounts of biomass and are currently working on developing a potato plant with a team in Japan. Results such as this hold great potential benefits in creating more foodstuffs and plant-based materials, and the inability to flower means they cannot spread to unwanted areas.
Photo: Dirk Prüfer, Gundula Noll (right) and Lena Harig (left) with some of their plants. Credit to Fraunhofer IME.
http://www.livescience.com/26213-tobacco-plant-genetics.html
http://phys.org/news/2013-01-giant-tobacco-young.html](http://sphotos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/s480x480/263331_581431521871827_898596080_n.jpg)
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