It is a well-established scientific truth that plants have feelings and respond to stimuli. Even without a nervous system like fauna, flora can sense when being touched and adapt according to the elements. Taking this unique, yet common quality shared by all natural beings forward, and wanting to improve communication with plants to warn them of impending mortal risks, has been the dedicated effort of a group of scientists at Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University (SLCU).
The team of plant scientists are trying to ‘talk’ to plants and warn them of approaching pest attacks and extreme weather, and this is being realised through the use of light-based messaging.
Early lab experiments with tobacco (Nicotiana benthamiana) demonstrated the subject responding to sudden changes by activating its natural defence mechanism, also called immune response, using light as a stimulus, or messenger.
Light is integral to all life on earth. Apart from allowing humans and animals to see the world around them, green plants use light (primarily sunlight) to produce their own food, through photosynthesis. Light also serves as a means of communication among humans. For eg. traffic signals, pedestrian crossings, and vehicle headlamps.
Accordingly, the SLCU team found light to be the ideal source to further their project. Led by scientist Dr Alexander Jones, the team is using light as a messenger to develop tools that enable plants to communicate with humans and vice versa. Earlier, the University of Cambridge team had engineered a series of biosensors using fluorescent light to visually communicate real-time all that is happening at the cellular level in plants, revealing the dynamics of critical plant hormones. These biosensors explain how plants react to environmental stresses – plants ‘talking’ to humans. Their latest research, published in PLOS Biology, describes a tool called ‘Highlighter’, which uses specific light conditions to activate the expression of a target gene in plants; for instance, to trigger their defence mechanism – humans ‘talking’ to plants.
he idea of humans being able to meaningfully communicate with plants has long captivated people. If this is ever achieved, it could revolutionise agriculture and our link with plant life.
“If we could warn plants of an impending disease outbreak or pest attack, plants could then activate their natural defence mechanisms to prevent widespread damage,” Dr Jones said, as quoted by the University of Cambridge website. “We could also inform plants about approaching extreme weather events, such as heat waves or drought, allowing them to adjust their growth patterns or conserve water. This could lead to more efficient and sustainable farming practices and reduce the need for chemicals,” he added.
To understand cellular activity, biologists must be able to control biomolecular processes at the cellular level.
Bo Larsen, who engineered Highlighter while at SLCU, has taken us a major step closer to this goal of ‘talking’ to plants by engineering a light-controlled gene expression system (optogenetics system) from a prokaryotic system into a eukaryotic system that is tailored for plants. Optogenetics is a scientific technique that uses a light stimulus to activate or deactivate a specific process.
“Light stimuli are cheap, reversible, non-toxic and can be delivered with high-resolution,” Dr Jones said. To achieve this, scientists engineer light-sensitive proteins (photoreceptors) to control a target process and then deliver these optogenetic ‘actuators’ to the cells they want to control.
Source: University of Cambridge