A team of scientists, co-led by Dr Carlos Alonso-Blanco of the Centro Nacional de Biotecnología in Spain and Dr Sureshkumar Balasubramanian of Monash University in Australia, made the discovery after analyzing natural populations of the model plant thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana).
Arabidopsis thaliana by Johann Georg Sturm, 1796.
“Plants are highly sensitive to environmental changes and even small changes in temperature impact on their growth,” Dr Balasubramanian said.
“We were surprised to find that some populations of Arabidopsis thaliana simply would not grow when the temperatures increased as little as 3-4 degrees Celsius.”
The scientists set out to find the genes responsible for this growth defect and after years of work, they were able to discover the underlying gene, which they refer to as ICARUS1, reflecting the temperature sensitivity conferred by the gene.
“With increasing average temperatures across the globe being predicted to have negative impacts on agricultural productivity, it is important to understand more about how plants regulate their growth,” Dr Balasubramanian said.
Plants that carried a defective ICARUS1 gene stopped growing when the temperature reached hot levels, and continued growing when it cooled down again.
“This allows us to envisage novel ways and mechanisms through which plant growth can be optimized,” Dr Balasubramanian added.
“Interestingly, Arabidopsis thaliana isn’t the only plant to have this gene, it is also found in nearly all other organisms, which suggests that our findings can be explored in crops.”
The findings, published in the journal PLoS Genetics, provided insights into how plants modulate their growth, and could lead to new ways of optimizing plant growth when it comes to climate change.
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Zhu W et al. 2015. Natural Variation Identifies ICARUS1, a Universal Gene Required for Cell Proliferation and Growth at High Temperatures in Arabidopsis thaliana. PLoS Genet 11 (5): e1005085; doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1005085
