• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Friday, October 3, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Biology

Plant cell gatekeepers’ diversity could be key to better crops

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
June 12, 2020
in Biology
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
IMAGE
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

IMAGE

Credit: Annamaria De Rosa, CoETP

Scientists have shed new light on how the network of gatekeepers that controls the traffic in and out of plant cells works, which researchers believe is key to develop food crops with bigger yields and greater ability to cope with extreme environments.

Everything that a plant needs to grow first needs to pass through its cells’ membranes, which are guarded by a sieve of microscopic pores called aquaporins.

“Aquaporins (AQPs) are ancient channel proteins that are found in most organisms, from bacteria to humans. In plants, they are vital for numerous plant processes including, water transport, growth and development, stress responses, root nutrient uptake, and photosynthesis,” says former PhD student Annamaria De Rosa from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis (CoETP) at The Australian National University (ANU).

“We know that if we are able to manipulate aquaporins, it will open numerous useful applications for agriculture, including improving crop productivity, but first we need to know more about their diversity, evolutionary history and the many functional roles they have inside the plant,” Ms De Rosa says.

Their research, published this week in the Journal BMC Plant Biology, did just that. They identified all the different types of aquaporins found in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum), a model plant species closely related to major economic crops such as tomato, potato, eggplant and capsicum.

“We described 76 types of these microscopic hour-glass shape channels based on their gene structures, protein composition, location in the plant cell and in the different organs of the plant and their evolutionary origin. These results are extremely important as they will help us to transfer basic research to applied agriculture,” says Ms De Rosa, whose PhD project focused on aquaporins.

“The Centre (CoETP) is really interested in understanding aquaporins because we believe they are a key player in energy conversion through photosynthesis and also control how a plant uses water. That is why we think we can use aquaporins to enhance plant performance and crop resilience to environmental changes,” says lead researcher Dr Michael Groszmann from the Research School of Biology and the CoETP at ANU.

Aquaporins are found everywhere in the plant, from the roots to flowers, transporting very different molecules in each location, at an astonishing 100 million molecules per second. The configuration of an aquaporin channel determines the substrate it transports and therefore its function, from the transport of water and nutrients from roots to shoots, to stress signalling or seed development.

“We focused on tobacco because it is a fast-growing model species that allows us to scale from the lab to the field, allowing us to evaluate performance in real-world scenarios. Tobacco is closely related to several important commercial crops, which means we can easily transfer the knowledge we obtain in tobacco to species like tomato and potato. Tobacco itself has own commercial applications and there is a renewed interest in the biofuel and plant-based pharmaceutical sectors,” he says.

“This research is extremely exciting because the diversity of aquaporins in terms of their function and the substrates they transport, mean they have many potential applications for crop improvement ranging from improved salt tolerance, more efficient fertiliser use, improved drought tolerance, and even more effective response to disease infection. They are currently being used in water filtration systems and our results could help to expand these applications. The future of aquaporins is full of possibilities,” says Dr Groszmann.

This research has been funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis (CoETP), led by the Australian National University, which aims to improve the process of photosynthesis to increase the production of major food crops such as sorghum, wheat and rice.

###

This research is published in BMC Plant Biology. Journalists who want to link to the article, can use the following link:
https://bmcplantbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12870-020-02412-5

Media Contact
Natalia Bateman
[email protected]

Original Source

https://photosynthesis.org.au/diversity-of-plant-cells-gatekeepers-could-be-key-to-better-crops/

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12870-020-02412-5

Tags: Agricultural Production/EconomicsAgricultureBiologyCell BiologyClimate ChangeGeneticsPlant Sciences
Share13Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

blank

Superinfection Drives Defective HIV-1 Diversity, Replication

October 3, 2025

Iridoid Cyclase Discovery Completes Asterid Pathway

October 3, 2025

Genome Sequencing Uncovers Population Divergence in Yaks

October 3, 2025

AI Uncovers Antimicrobial Peptides Fighting Superbugs

October 3, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    92 shares
    Share 37 Tweet 23
  • New Study Indicates Children’s Risk of Long COVID Could Double Following a Second Infection – The Lancet Infectious Diseases

    87 shares
    Share 35 Tweet 22
  • Physicists Develop Visible Time Crystal for the First Time

    75 shares
    Share 30 Tweet 19
  • How Donor Human Milk Storage Impacts Gut Health in Preemies

    65 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

MRI Radiomics Predicts Pituitary Tumor Consistency

Multi-Domain O-GlcNAcase Unveils Allosteric Mechanisms

Urbanization Alters Oak Tree Microbiome Composition

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 61 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.