China-U.S. cooperation to increase the production of potato, rice and wheat by 50% breakthrough technology

In the initial experiment, adding a protein-coding gene called FTO to rice and potato plants increased their yield by 50% in field trials
.
Plants grow significantly larger, produce longer root systems, and can better tolerate drought stress

"The changes are really huge," said Professor Chuan He of the University of Chicago, who co-led the research with Professor Guifang Jia of Peking University
.
"More importantly, it is suitable for almost all types of plants we have tried so far.

Researchers are hopeful about the potential of this breakthrough, especially in the context of climate change and other pressures facing global crop systems
.
For decades, in the face of an increasingly unstable climate and a growing global population, scientists have been working hard to increase crop yields

The method of this discovery is completely different
.

Many of us remember RNA in high school biology classes.
We learned RNA molecules to read DNA and then make proteins to perform tasks

He and his colleagues immediately realized that this is of great significance to biology
.
Since then, He's team and others around the world have been working hard to flesh out our understanding of this process and its effects on animals, plants, and different human diseases

He and Guifang Jia, a former postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago and now an associate professor at Peking University, began to think about how it affects plant biology
.

Their research focuses on a protein called FTO, which is the first protein known to eliminate chemical markers on RNA.
Jia discovered this protein while doing postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago
.
Scientists know that it affects the cell growth of humans and other animals by studying RNA, so they tried to insert this gene into rice plants, and then they were surprised to observe the growth of these plants

"I think at that moment, all of us realized that we were doing something special," He said
.

Under laboratory conditions, the yield of these rice is three times the original
.
When they tried this method in actual field trials, the quality of the plants increased by 50% and the yield increased by 50%

Scientists repeated this experiment on potato plants because the potatoes belong to a completely different family
.
The result is the same

"This shows that a certain degree of universality is very exciting," He said
.

It took longer for scientists to begin to understand how this happened
.
Further experiments showed that FTO began to play a role in the early stages of plant development, increasing the total biomass it produces
.

Scientists believe that FTO controls a process called m6A, which is a key modification of RNA
.
In this case, FTO suppresses some signals that tell plants to slow down and reduce growth by eliminating m6A RNA
.
Imagine a road with many traffic lights; if scientists block the red light and leave the green light, more and more cars can drive along the road
.

In general, the transgenic plants produced significantly more RNA than the control plants
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The process described herein involves the use of animal FTO genes in plants
.
Once scientists fully understand this growth mechanism, He thinks there may be other ways to achieve the same effect
.

He said: "It seems that plants already have this level of regulation, and what we do is use it
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So the next step will be to discover how to use the existing genes of the plant to do this
.
"

He can imagine various uses in the future, and He is collaborating with universities and the Polski Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation to explore various possibilities
.

He said: "In addition to food, climate change has other consequences
.
Maybe we can modify grasses in threatened areas to make them able to withstand drought
.
Maybe we can teach a tree in the Midwest to grow longer roots so that it It’s unlikely to be overthrown in a strong storm
.
There are many potential applications
.
"

Qiong Yu, Shun Liu, Lu Yu, Yu Xiao, Shasha Zhang, Xueping Wang, Yingying Xu, Hong Yu, Yulong Li, Junbo Yang, Jun Tang, Hong-Chao Duan, Lian-Huan Wei, Haiyan Zhang, Jiangbo Wei, Qian Tang, Chunling Wang, Wutong Zhang, Ye Wang, Peizhe Song, Qiang Lu, Wei Zhang, Shunqing Dong, Baoan Song, Chuan He, Guifang Jia.
RNA demethylation increases the yield and biomass of rice and potato plants in field trials .
Nature Biotechnology , 2021; DOI: 10.
1038/s41587-021-00982-9