A new study may help make spinach leaf look like lettuce
A new
study may help make spinach leaf look like lettuce
New Delhi : A new study could help
introduce innovations in the food industry as it could help change the shape of
the salad leaves as one desires.
Plants have either `simple’ or `compound’ leaves. A mango tree, for
example, is considered to possess `simple’ leaves because they have a single,
intact leaf blade. A Gulmohar tree, on the other hand, has `compound’ leaves
where the leaf blade is dissected into multiple leaflets. Both types of leaves start out as rod-like structures
budding out from the meristem, the tip of the stem where stem cells are present. But, they take different shapes
as they grow. The question as to how this happens has been a subject of
much investigation.
The new study was conducted to help unscramble the puzzle. It has shed
light on how `simple’ leaves develop in a plant. It has identified two gene
families that regulate the development of `simple’ leaves in a plant called Arabidopsis thaliana – a popular model
organism in plant biology. These gene families – CIN-TCP and KNOX-II –
encode proteins called transcription factors that suppress the formation of new
leaflets at the margin, thereby giving rise to `simple’ leaves.
The researchers simultaneously suppressed multiple members of the two
gene families. This caused the `simple’ leaves to become `super compound’
leaves that gave rise to leaflets indefinitely. However, when they
independently suppressed either of the two gene families, the leaves did not
turn into compound leaves. This suggests that the genes work in concert.
In addition, the mutant leaves continued to stay young and grow for as
long as they had the necessary growing conditions. While Arabidopsis leaves typically mature in around 30 days and withers
by 60 days, the leaves of these mutant plants with suppressed CIN-TCP and KNOX-II gene families grew for as long as the researchers followed
them (175 days) – and could potentially go on for months or years given the necessary
conditions.
The study was conducted by researchers from the Department of
Microbiology and Cell Biology (MCB) at the Bengaluru-based Indian Institute of
Science (IISc) and their collaborators from Shodhaka Life Sciences, Bengaluru.
“While other scientists have been able to convert compound leaves to
simple leaves by manipulating the expression of certain genes, our report is
the first one to go the other way around,” UtpalNath, Associate Professor at
MCB and senior author of the paper, said, in an IISc press release.
The press release noted that the findings could initiate and nurture
innovations in the food industry in the long run. Krishna Reddy Challa, a
former Ph.D. student at MCB and co-lead author of the study, said, “One could
use this technique to alter the shape of the salad leaves as one chooses or
increase their biomass. For instance, you could change the shape of a spinach
leaf to look like lettuce.”
MonalishaRath, a Ph.D. student at MCB and another co-lead author of
the study, said “Since the leaves don’t mature once the CIN-TCP and KNOX-II genes
are suppressed, you can also control the longevity of the plant and thereby
extend its shelf-life”.
The study team included A.N.Sharma, A.K.Bajpai, S.Davuluri, and K.K.Acharya.
They have published a report on their work in Nature Plants.
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