Episodes of low rainfall and drought are becoming more common in the Mediterranean basin, partly due to climate change. Reducing the impact of these situations in strategic sectors such as agriculture is a social and economic priority to which various scientific groups try to provide solutions.
Researchers from the Institute of Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology (IBMCP), a joint center of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), and from the Rocasolano Institute of Physical Chemistry (IQFR), also from the CSIC, have now presented a new possible solution for drought situations in agriculture.
The proposal consists of a product that activates the hormonal resistance of crop plants in the face of lack of water. The results of this research in which biomedical techniques are applied to agricultural biotechnology have been presented in an article published in the journal Science Advances and have given rise to a patent.
The authors recall that the plant hormone (phytohormone) called abscisic acid (ABA) has important functions within the physiology of plants and may be key in the adaptive response of plants to water stress.
“In this project, the teams led by Pedro Luis Rodríguez at the IBMCP in Valencia and Armando Albert at the IQFR in Madrid developed a genetic-chemical method to activate this pathway in an inducible way and without penalizing plant growth,” he explains. the CSIC in an informative note on the work of its experts.
Based on the atomic structure of the proteins involved and using genetic engineering techniques, CSIC researchers have created a modified ABA receptor that is activated by a mimetic molecule called iSB09. According to the results of their study, plants carrying this modified receptor and treated with iSB09 show great tolerance to drought.
“This combination efficiently activates the ABA route and generates protection by starting up the adaptive mechanisms of the plant,” says Pedro Luis Rodríguez, from the IBMCP (CSIC-UPV). “Individually, the iSB09 molecule also allows reducing water loss through transpiration in tomato plants,” he points out.
“This is the first time that an ABA receptor has been modified in crop plants to adapt it to a phytohormone mimetic molecule,” says Armando Albert, a researcher at the IQFR-CSIC. “This molecule has a greater persistence than the ABA hormone itself, which has a short half-life, and can be added at the right time to protect the plant in drought situations,” he explains.
According to the study, this combination makes it possible to reduce the dose of agrochemicals used in crop plants, because the combination with the modified receptor enhances the effect of the molecule. “Our objective is to improve the resistance of plants to drought and even, in extreme cases, allow their survival until irrigation is restored,” reveals Rodríguez. “The objective is to develop drugs against drought by applying the advanced molecular knowledge developed in the plant world”, she remarks.
For this work, CSIC researchers have used strategies previously applied in the field of biomedicine (known as ‘drug discoveries’ or drug discovery), but in this case transferred to agricultural biotechnology. The method has been protected by a patent owned by the CSIC-UPV, as the Institute of Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology is a mixed center.
According to the researchers, “the iSB09 molecule must pass food safety studies like any agrochemical, something that the company that exploits this molecule will take care of. The introduction of the modified receptor, like all genetic modification, is pending changes in European legislation, for example, the acceptance of the CRISPR technique in agricultural biotechnology. But companies can use this approach in other countries where it is allowed.”
