Scientists from Queensland University of Technology recently discovered a unique genetic code in an Australian tobacco plant which may someday pave way for food production in space.
Professor Peter Waterhouse said that they first traced the history of the tobacco plant Pitjuri or Nicotiana benthamiana. The Pitjuri is a "laboratory rat" plant which is often used to test vaccines and viruses. Waterhouse discovered that the plant adapted over-sized seeds as well as rapid reproduction and sacrificed its immune system.
To find out how the adaptation works, Waterhouse and his colleagues mapped the gene fault which switched off the Pitjuri's immune system. Their work is issued in the journal Nature Plants.
After sequencing the plant's genome and looking into historical records, the team determined that the Pitjuri originated from the harsh desert area near the Northern Territory border and Western Australia. This enabled the tobacco plant to survive and adapt to the hostile environmental conditions.
"You'd think it wouldn't be a good thing to have lost your immune system and yet the plant has survived for this length of time and we wondered why," said Waterhouse.
He described the process as this: for the plant to survive, it had to germinate and grow very quickly, and place its seed so that when there is rainfall, it can go through its life cycle as fast as it can. This ability is more beneficial to the plant than being able to defend itself from non-existent pathogens in the area, he said.
Waterhouse said that the plant's harsh living conditions are almost as hostile as the disease-free environment in space.
Researchers believe that their findings could have great impact on biotechnology research and space colonization.
Because the team narrowed down the exact gene responsible for the Pitjuri's unique abilities, their next step is to replicate the gene fault in other plants in hopes that they could significantly increase yields on seed crops.
Waterhouse explained that it would not be difficult now to test other plant species and knock out the same gene to figure out if they could also produce the same special properties that the Pitjuri has.
"It will be interesting to see what a plant will do if you give it this bigger boost of energy to spend in any way it likes," added Waterhouse.
