Growing glow-in-the-dark flower seeds. MIT created luminous plants: environmental lighting of the future

The idea of ​​scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Engineering was successful and now there are plants that glow. With their help the streets will be illuminated.

American genetic engineers, together with nanotechnologists, managed to develop luminous plants. The experiments were carried out on samples of watercress or watercress, a semi-aquatic plant of the cabbage family.

To achieve glow, pigments-lucephyrins, a special oxidizing enzyme similar to the genes of fireflies and luminous bacteria, were introduced into plants. These elements were transported into plant tissues using silicon nanoparticles. When they enter plants, they enter into a reaction, as a result of which energy begins to be released and the plant glows.

Gene modification and experiments with genes were not carried out. Scientists took a different route and began to simply introduce the necessary particles into the plant. The plant is soaked in the solution, high pressure is created, and particles penetrate into the plant through micropores.

Of course, ethical questions immediately arose. Is this harmful to plants and does this interfere with their normal functioning? Scientists immediately assured environmentalists that it was not harmful.

The composition of the introduced elements also includes a special coenzyme that can remove harmful substances resulting from oxidation.

Applications of luminous plants

Why did they come up with such a “miracle” - a plant and where can it help? There are no plants in nature that glow. Only a few living organisms have the ability to glow.

According to the researchers, such plants were bred in order to use them to illuminate streets at night without lanterns. Luminescent particles will circulate in the plant in this way so that they glow at night.

If the experiment is completely successful, it will be possible to save on electricity. According to statistics, almost 20% of all electricity produced is spent on street lighting.

At this stage, this is impossible, and the removed plants, although they glow, cannot fully replace lighting devices. It is impossible to read underneath them without straining your eyesight. For now, their light is enough to illuminate a path for pedestrians or even a highway.

The first samples glowed for only 45 minutes, then they managed to achieve a 4-hour glow. Scientists want to achieve a result when plants glow throughout their lives. Plus, I would also like to simplify the delivery of reagents and make something like a spray.

Scientists are gradually increasing the power of luminous grass, and perhaps in the near future luminous grass will be able to become a full-fledged light source.

As the object of “highlighting”, scientists chose the favorite model plant of geneticists - the inconspicuous Tal’s rhizome. Arabidopsis thaliana. If everything goes well with him, then at the next stage biologists promise to make the rose glow.

Interestingly, “biohackers,” as the press nicknamed them, do not require any permits to work. The authors of the project say that according to US laws, luminous plants are not subject to regulation: they are not intended for human or animal consumption, and the federal agricultural agency APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) is only interested in the method of introducing transgenes. If the genes of the luciferase system are introduced into the plant using a method that does not use pathogens (initially it was planned to use a conditionally pathogenic Agrobacterium), APHIS will not be able to interfere with the work of Evans and his colleagues.

Appeared, in addition to the specialized environmental activist press, in The Guardian. The Canadian organization ETC Group was the most active - it tried to organize a public campaign designed to put pressure on Kickstarter to not provide funding to “biohackers.”

It is difficult to say whether Evans and his associates will be able to overcome the resistance and deliver the seeds on time to the enthusiasts who supported the project. So far it seems that they have a much better chance of this than AquaBounty with their long-suffering salmon. After all, “biohackers,” unlike AquaBounty, Monsanto and other biotech companies, will have to fight not with the American bureaucracy in the form of the FDA, but with public opinion and environmental activists, who, fortunately or unfortunately, are not yet so powerful.

First prototypes

The first "conditionally luminous" plants were obtained by Stephen Howell's group in 1986. Genetically altered carrots and tobacco contained only luciferase itself (the enzyme that stimulates luminescence), but they lacked luciferin (the luminous pigment itself). The problem was that to produce luciferase, it is enough to insert only one gene into DNA, but to produce luciferin, many different genes are required to assemble it “piece by piece.”

As a result, the resulting plants did not emit light on their own; they had to be sprayed with luciferin or added to the soil. This, by the way, can be seen in the photographs that later became the symbol of the Glowing Plant project. The roots and vessels of tobacco glow most strongly on them, but not because luciferase works better there, but because the substrate moves through them from the soil.

The first plant capable of glowing on its own was obtained much later - only in 2010. Alexander Krichevsky and his colleagues from the universities of New York and Israel worked on it. In order to force tobacco to produce its own luciferin, scientists used a block of genes from the luminescent bacteria Photobacterium leiognathi. In this case, the genes were inserted into the genome of chloroplasts so that they could not spread with pollen.

However, the transgenic tobacco glowed very faintly - its light was barely visible in very long exposure photographs. This is because genes do not always work efficiently when transferred from one organism to another. However, this did not prevent the author of the project from registering the corresponding patent. Moreover, such a genetic system was quite suitable for the scientific study of plants.

Step forward

In general, don’t feed scientists bread - let them stitch the luciferase sequence to any interesting genes, so that you can monitor how their activation is accompanied by luminescence. After all, unlike conventional dye, it allows you to completely get rid of extraneous “noise”.

The very idea that such working tools can be used for something completely unrelated to research came from a group of students from the University of Cambridge. In 2010, nine bright minds decided to develop a genetic system that would allow them to create brightly glowing “decorative” organisms.

Students supplemented the enzymes for luciferin synthesis with an enzyme for its regeneration (thus solving Krichevsky's problem), optimized the genes of the Japanese firefly Luciola cruciata for expression in E. coli, and made several other improvements. As a result, they obtained a strain of bacteria, a flask with which can, for example, be used instead of a lamp - such E. coli provide enough light to read a book.

It glows!

The emergence of real luminous greenery, accessible even to people from a non-scientific environment, became possible thanks to a meeting between Israeli biologist Omri Amirav-Drory, entrepreneur Anthony Evans and plant geneticist Kyle Taylor. Based in San Francisco, the project was conceived as a public demonstration of the power of synthetic biology to modify and rewrite genes and use DNA molecules created in laboratories. He also supports the DIY biology movement, which seeks to make biotechnology more accessible to the public.

As an object of “highlighting”, scientists chose the favorite model plant of geneticists - the inconspicuous Arabidopsis thaliana. The reason for such “tenderness” towards cabbage’s wild relative is simple: it has a very short and already completely deciphered genome. That's why this plant even traveled to space aboard the Soviet Salyut 7 station, and NASA plans to grow it on the Moon in the next decade. At the next stage, biologists promise to make the rose glow (although today there is already an easier and faster way - just cover the flowers with a special bio-gel).

Scientists did not have to count on government or even private support for such a project, so it was decided to turn to crowdfunding on the Kikstarter website. The planned budget was 65 thousand dollars, but the luminous plants aroused such interest that the amount of funds raised exceeded 400 thousand dollars. For those who donated $40 for funding, the team promised to send seeds of the future plant for self-cultivation, and $150 for the plant itself.

Greens' doubts

At first, the green press reacted favorably to such a fantastic idea. After all, with the help of luminous trees it would be possible to illuminate city streets and highways, thereby saving a lot of electricity and reducing carbon dioxide emissions. In addition, Avatar-themed plants could become very popular in futuristic interiors, landscaping and building architecture. But when the dream began to turn into reality, the enthusiasm of environmentalists began to wane.

Some experts and analysts fear that the spread of these plants could set a precedent for the uncontrolled release of synthetic GMO organisms into the natural balance. After all, no control over the spread of the “living light bulb” is implied: Enthusiasts who invest in the project will be able to freely grow luminous plants, collect their seeds, and even (possibly) obtain new luminous hybrids. However, the US government does not have the authority to control the creation of such organisms, since they are not intended for human or animal consumption.

Glow-in-the-dark plants that look like they came straight out of the shimmering forests of Avatar are ready to take up residence in your garden. Growing a glowing tree will, of course, take some time, but you can order glow-in-the-dark seeds from Arabidopsis, a small flowering plant in the cruciferous family, now.

Glowingplant planned to begin shipping seeds as early as next week, according to the Kickstarter campaign that launched the company last year. But, according to the company, the release was delayed until the fall - not because of production glitches or failures with the glow of the plants themselves, but because the project raised more money than they originally expected.

A few months ago, we asked our investors if they wanted us to start sending seeds on time, or if we should use the rest of the funds to improve luminosity, explains Anthony Evans, CEO of the synthetic biology startup that has created bioluminescent flora.

And the vast majority advised us to work on improving luminosity.

In order to create a bioluminescent plant, scientists artificially crossed Arabidopsis and the luminous marine bacterium Vibrio fischeri. Simply inserting bacterial DNA into a plant wouldn't work—genes require a number of changes to work correctly in a plant—so the team took a synthetic approach.

First, the researchers assembled the genes virtually, using software called a genetic compiler, which allows scientists to assemble the DNA of new life forms on computers. After that, they sent the gene characteristics to DNA assembly companies, which built the actual DNA.

To import freshly harvested genes into Arabidopsis, the team used a bacterium called Agrobacterium tumefaciens. In nature, A. tumefaciens is a pathogenic organism that inserts its genes into plant cells, causing cancer. But its neutralized version can deliver the synthesized DNA to the host plant without harming it.

The researchers inserted the resulting genes into leaves and assessed how well the plant adapted and how much light it produced. Thanks to additional funding, scientists are now experimenting with a range of slightly different DNA sequences to produce the best glow.

We plan to test about 1,500 sequences,” Evans notes.

Once scientists have found the best DNA sequence, they will create a commercial glow-in-the-dark Arabidopsis plant using a tool called a gene gun that bombards the plant with nanoparticles designed to deliver the DNA inside.

When it flowers, Arabidopsis will produce seeds that carry new genes, and its offspring will also glow in the dark. Now a team of scientists is testing the ability of the second generation of Arabidopsis to glow.

When the seeds eventually go on sale, it will be the world's largest release of a genetically engineered plant—a concept that some environmentalists are downright uncomfortable with.

In modern science, synthetic biology and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are highly controversial concepts. There are concerns that GMOs pose a danger to humans or may even become invasive species.

When Glowing Plant first launched its project on Kickstarter, a group of anti-synthetic biology activists in Canada launched a kickstopper campaign to stop the project. The initiative raised just $2,274, while Evans' team came within just a couple of dollars of half a million, exceeding its original goal by more than seven times.

Christina Holmes, who studies the human implications of biotechnology and plant breeding innovations at Dalhousie University in Canada, notes that the risks vary from case to case.

To put it bluntly, not all GMOs are created equal, says Holmes. – Much depends on what plant you use, what genes you used, and, finally, for what purpose.

The risk increases if the plants in question are intended for human consumption. But Arabidopsis is just a weed. From the point of view of the invasive danger of species, the risks also need to be considered on a case-by-case basis. This depends in part on how easily the plant in question spreads its pollen, and therefore its genes, to other plants.

In the case of Arabidopsis, the fears are unfounded because the plant is primarily a self-pollinating grass, says Kyle Taylor, a molecular biologist and botanist at Glowing Plant.

Ask any Arabidopsis biologist whether it is easy to get these plants to cross-pollinate, and they will tell you that this is a completely non-trivial task.

Taylor also added that the hybrid would have a much harder time surviving because producing light would require additional energy and would weaken the plant. The hybrid may even confuse its own light with sunlight, which can negatively affect its metabolism.

If you put a regular Arabidopsis next to a glowing one, Taylor admits, the glowing plant looks less happy.

Holmes argues that you never know in advance how a new species will behave, but light modification certainly "will not make it more powerful as a weed" - compared to, say, canola, which is genetically modified to resist herbicides.

According to Evans' predictions, the luminous plant should make the concept of synthetic biology interesting and relatable to people.

The reason many people don't trust biotechnology is because they don't understand it, Evans said. “We believe that we will be able to change attitudes towards biotechnology by creating something tangible, something that people can understand.

So will we really see a forest filled with Pandora trees that will replace street lights, reduce electricity consumption and reduce CO2 emissions?

It takes a lot of work to get to that level,” Taylor admits.

This is biology, so there can always be some nuances that we don't fully understand. But we have a couple of ideas on how to achieve what you want.