A research group led by Professor Toshinori Kinoshita of Nagoya University, together with Professor Zhu Yi-young of Nanjing Agricultural University (China), has developed a technology to simultaneously increase nutrient absorption and pore opening in roots by increasing one gene of rice. However, we succeeded in increasing the yield of rice in outdoor paddy fields by more than 1%.It is expected to increase food production and reduce carbon dioxide and fertilizer.
Plants have pores (stomata) on their surface, which are composed of a pair of guard cells that open under sunlight to take in carbon dioxide required for photosynthesis.If the stomata are wide open and at the same time promote the absorption of nutrients from the roots and enhance photosynthesis, the growth and yield of plants will be greatly increased, causing carbon dioxide and environmental pollution that cause global warming. It is expected that fertilizer will be reduced.However, there are no reports of techniques for simultaneously enhancing stomatal opening and root nutrient absorption.
So far, the research group has shown that the cell membrane proton pump (a primary transporter that transports hydrogen ions from the inside to the outside of the cell) plays an important role in nutrient absorption and stomatal opening in the roots.Therefore, when we created overexpressed rice with increased expression of one cell membrane proton pump gene (OSA1), the absorption of nitrogen nutrients in the roots was increased by 1% or more and the photosynthetic activity was increased by 20% or more.In addition, as a result of conducting yield evaluation tests for two years in four different field isolated paddy fields, the yield of rice increased by 25% or more.
The research group will name the plants using this technology "pump plants" and plan to apply them to various useful plants.In the future, by promoting the development of "pump plants" by methods that do not rely on genetic recombination technology such as genome editing technology and compounds, it is said that practical application in society will be greatly promoted.
Paper information:[Nature Communications] Plasma membrane H +-ATPase overexpression increases rice yield via simultaneous enhancement of nutrient uptake and photosynthesis
