Genetic recombination allows plants to eat meat as well

flies recombined their existing genes so that they could eat meat. Photo Credit: PASCAL GOETGHELUCK/MINDEN PICTURES
How did plants evolve carnivores? In "The Horror Shop," an American horror movie released in 1960, only a drop of human blood was needed. But in real life, it's not that simple.
now, a study of three closely related carnivores has shown that the clever recombination of genes has helped them develop the ability to capture and digest protein-rich foods.
carnivores have evolved many cunning methods of trapping prey. For example, pig cage grasses use enzyme-rich "traps" to digest insects, while Venus fly-catchers, vesicles and spoon-leaf pastes move to catch prey. When the poor prey is caught, the spoon-leaf paste rolls up its mucus-filled leaves and traps the prey in it, while the upper and lower blades of the Venus fly-catcher grass have burrs, and once the insects touch them multiple times, they suddenly close and become prisoners of insects.
To find out how these plants evolved traps to become carnivorous plants, a team led by computational and evolutionary biologist Jrg Schultz of the University of Welzburg and plant biologist Rainer Hedrich sequenced the genomes of Venus fly-catchers, vesicle algae and spoon-leaf thatched vegetables. It was then compared to the genomes of nine other plants, including a carnivore pig cage grass plant, a non-carnivore beetroot and a papaya genus.
team recently reported in Current Biology that they have found that the key to the evolution of carnivores in the plant kingdom is that they lived in a common ancestor about 60 million years ago, and that today's plants replicate the complete genome of that ancestor to be able to "eat meat." This replication releases genes that were once used to detect and digest prey at plant roots, leaves, and sensory systems. For example, carnivores copy genes that help roots absorb nutrients into the leaves, allowing them to absorb nutrients from digested prey.
Hedrich and colleagues concluded that carnivores evolved once among the ancestors of the three species and once independently in pig cage grass. These two newly discovered evolutionary origins, along with other documented origins, have evolved carnivores at least six times.
However, Victor Albert, a plant evolutionary biologist at the State University of New York at Buffalo, believes the Hedrich team does not have enough data to support these two new origins, especially since some of the genes necessary for predation are also present in the common early ancestors of pig cage grass and three new sequencing plants. His team is sequencing the plants of the other two genus of the paste to clarify the problem.
, Luis Herrera Estrellau, a plant genomics scientist at Texas Tech University, is pleased to have discovered new genes associated with carnivores. This helped him and other researchers study how genes recombine, making it possible for other plants to "eat meat."
, it seems that most plants already have many of the genes necessary for "carnivores," says Hedrich, a research expert. "The path of carnivore seems to be open to all plants."
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