GENE GUN ALLOWS TRANSIENT EXPRESSION OF CRISPR-CAS9 IN WHEAT Wheat is recalcitrant to tissue culture, hindering its genetic improvement through transformation. Consequently, it cannot be improved through gene editing, which also requires transformation and tissue culture regeneration. To solve this problem, researcher Ryozo Imai from National Agriculture and Food Research Organization in Japan and colleagues use gene gun to transiently …

SCIENTISTS WIPE OUT A MOSQUITO POPULATION THROUGH GENOME-EDITING Scientist Andrea Crisanti from Imperial College London in the United Kingdom and colleagues edit the doublesex gene in the mosquito malaria vector Anopheles gambiae using CRISPR-Cas9. Through the disruption of intron 4 to exon 5 of the gene, the female version of the gene was not produced, thus conferring sterility. This edited gene was introduced to a population …

Designing a more productive corn able to cope with future climates An international research team has found they can increase corn productivity by targeting the enzyme in charge of capturing CO۲ from the atmosphere. Maize, or corn, is a staple food for billions of people around the world, with more maize grown annually than rice or wheat. In Australia, maize has …

Improving poplar biomass production under stress conditions Inside the phytotron, rows of white industrial cabinets hide the life expected in a greenhouse. A peek through a square viewing port, however, reveals the green energy growing inside the bright chamber. These specific poplar saplings may not survive the hardships of prolonged droughts and heat waves, but they are helping a team …

Scientists: US military program could be seen as bioweapon A research arm of the U.S. military is exploring the possibility of deploying insects to make plants more resilient by altering their genes. Some experts say the work may be seen as a potential biological weapon. In an opinion paper published Thursday in the journal Science, the authors say the U.S. needs …

Fungus provides powerful medicine in fighting honey bee viruses A mushroom extract fed to honey bees greatly reduces virus levels, according to a new paper from Washington State University scientists, the USDA and colleagues at Fungi Perfecti, a business based in Olympia, Washington. In field trials, colonies fed mycelium extract from amadou and reishi fungi showed a 79-fold reduction in …

Measuring up: methionine sources Methionine is an essential amino acid in animal nutrition. Last year’s global methionine market experienced strong demand growth of 6 percent, despite supply disruptions. Supply disruptions occurred as major producers experienced production shortfalls due to raw material shortages, facility maintenance and delayed plant openings. Many of these issues have been resolved as supply has stabilised. With …

Next Generation, Non-GMO Natural Preservatives Developed By Conagen BEDFORD, Mass., Oct. 3, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Conagen, an innovative biotechnology company announced today that it had a major breakthrough in developing next-generation natural preservatives through patent-pending technology. This ready-to-go technology will help potential partners with successful commercialization in 2019. Preservatives are substances added to foods to inhibit the growth of mold and thus prolong …

Complex Factors Can Drive The Emergence And Evolution Of Plant Pathogens For many of us, bumper crops of zucchinis and cucumbers conjure up the sweltering days of summer, while pumpkins and gourds decorate our holiday tables throughout the fall. However, these iconic fruits and vegetables – known collectively as cucurbits – can also help us understand the spread of plant …

Engineering plants for a sustainable future In the search for sustainable materials, the day-to-day structures of plants could help replace polluting materials and plastics with ones that are less detrimental to our environment. Plants produce walls on a daily basis and these walls support many essential aspects of life. Our new discovery, published in Nature Plants, shows how plant walls could …

In dangerous fungal family’s befriending of plants, a story of loss MADISON – If Lewis Carroll had described in detail the mushroom Alice nibbles in Wonderland to shrink and grow to her rightful size, he might have noted a scarlet cap topped with white warts: the fly amanita. This brilliant, distinctive toadstool is hallucinogenic. Eating it can distort perception and …

A seismic shift in shrimp farming Charoen Pokphands Foods (CPF) has announced plans to stop farming shrimp in outdoor facilities within the next five years. “Currently, 15 – ۲۰ percent of the company’s farms in Thailand are indoor. We expect a complete transformation in probably the next 5 years,” said Premsak Wanuchsoontorn, executive vice-president for aquaculture business at CPF. Wanuchsoontorn made …

Trouble in the Soil Bed: Sex Toys for Plants We live in a society obsessed with sex. Yet many of us forget that other living beings can have their own issues and needs in the reproductive area. A group of artists and designers from Slovenia got together to create fictional sex toys for the specific problems of plants. A dildo …

Genes Key To Identifying Drug Resistant Parasites In Brazil Researchers at the University of York have identified genes in a parasite that could help clinicians predict drug treatment outcomes for patients with visceral leishmaniasis in Brazil. The findings could lead to a new prognostic test that can predict which patients will respond well to drug treatment and which patients need …

A Protein Prevents Plants From Premature Flowering The induction of flowering is of major importance from an ecological and agronomic point of view. Timely and synchronous flowering is essential to optimize pollination and allow seed production and maturation under favorable environmental conditions. Environmental factors, including light in particular, regulate flowering time, the mechanisms of which have been the subject of …

Blazes of light reveal how plants signal danger long distances In one video, you can see a hungry caterpillar, first working around a leaf’s edges, approaching the base of the leaf and, with one last bite, severing it from the rest of the plant. Within seconds, a blaze of fluorescent light washes over the other leaves, a signal that they …

SCIENTISTS DEVELOP MODIFIED CRISPR-CAS9 SYSTEM FOR TETRAPLOID POTATO Potato’s tetraploid genome requires a more powerful genome editing system. Scientist Hiroaki Kusano of Tokyo University of Science and colleagues apply the translational enhancer dMac3 to the Cas9 expression vector to increase the amount of Cas9 proteins produced inside potato cells. dMac3 is a 161-bp region of the OsMac3mRNA, which promotes efficiency of translation in the nearby …

Robot created to monitor key wine vineyard parameters Grapes must be picked at the exact point of maturation, and its plant must have the appropriate intake of water during development so that the wine ends up with desired properties. Controlling those parameters is complicated and expensive, and few can afford to use pressure chambers that measure water potential. “This prevents …

Kiwifruit duplicated its vitamin C genes twice, 50 million and 20 million years ago Today’s kiwifruit, a member of the Chinese gooseberry family, contains about as much vitamin C as an orange. This extra boost in vitamin C production is the result of the kiwifruit’s ancestors’ spontaneously duplicating their DNA in two separate evolutionary events approximately 50-57 million and 18-20 …

First monoploid reference sequence of sugarcane Most species are diploids and have two sets of chromosomes, one from each parent. In contrast, many crops have multiple sets of chromosomes (they are “polyploid”) and their complex genomes are more difficult to sequence and assemble, in turn limiting the use of modern, genomic breeding in these crops. For diploid species, sequencing programs …

Merck Animal Health introduces new vaccine for PRRS The total cost of productivity losses due to PRRS in the U.S. national breeding and growing-pig herds is an estimated $638 million annually. Merck Animal Health has released a new vaccine that provides protection against respiratory and reproductive diseases caused by porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus in swine. The company says …

Genome Duplication Drives Evolution Of Species Many wild and cultivated plants arise through the combination of two different species. The genome of these so-called polyploid species often consists of a quadruple set of chromosomes – a double set for each parental species – and thus has about twice as many genes as the original species. About 50 years ago, evolutionary …

Photosynthesis Discovery Could Help Next-Gen Biotechnologies Researchers from The University of Queensland (UQ) and the University of Münster (WWU) have purified and visualized the ‘Cyclic Electron Flow’ (CEF) supercomplex, a critical part of the photosynthetic machinery in all plants, in a discovery that could help guide the development of next-generation solar biotechnologies. The findings, made in collaboration with an international …

Burst Of Morning Gene Activity Tells Plants When To Flower For angiosperms — or flowering plants — one of the most important decisions facing them each year is when to flower. It is no trivial undertaking. To flower, they must cease vegetative growth and commit to making those energetically expensive reproductive structures that will bring about the next generation. Knowledge …

Sex in plants requires thrust Plant sex relies on a combination of prodding and a lot of communication and guidance suggests a study published in the September 2018 issue of Technology. It’s a process that is fraught with challenges. The sperm, two of which are housed in each grain of pollen, are unable to move on their own and the egg …

How a molecular signal helps plant cells decide when to make oil UPTON, NY–A study at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory identifies new details of how a sugar-signaling molecule helps regulate oil production in plant cells. As described in a paper appearing in the journal The Plant Cell, the work could point to new ways to engineer plants …

UMass Amherst Food Scientists Partner with ‘Real Pickles’ to Profile Microbes at a Fermented Vegetable Facility AMHERST, Mass. – University of Massachusetts Amherst food scientists have mapped and characterized microbial populations in a vegetable fermentation facility and report that its microbiome was distinct between production and fermentation areas and that the raw vegetables themselves – cabbages destined for sauerkraut – …

Closed salmon system opens for business Cermaq has transferred its first batch of smolt into the world’s largest flexible closed containment system, which has the capacity to hold 400 tonnes of salmon. The walls of the 160m-diameter Flexifarm prototype, which is sited at their Horsvågen site in northern Norway, are made of strong and flexible composite, minimising the risk of …

Fungus-based Pesticides Might Be the Green Solution of the Future Poisoning various things in nature is big business. In the year 2012 — the last time the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) published a report on the subject — chemical pesticide sales in the United States amounted to nearly $14 billion. That’s around 1.1 billion pounds (0.5 billion kilograms) of chemicals like chlorine, formaldehyde …

GMO cotton prompts dramatic drop in China’s pesticide use China has experienced large and sustained reductions in pesticide use as a result of adopting GMO cotton, according to the largest-ever scientific study on the impacts of Bt cotton use in that country. Although Bt was only targeting the cotton bollworm, the subsequent reduction in pesticide applications allowed natural predators to further control …