Invigorating plants against viral attack
Understanding how plants 'silence' invading viruses could hold the key to releasing their hidden potential.
December 2011
One of the key elements of the 'green revolution' – a series of agricultural initiatives that dramatically boosted crop productivity worldwide – was the harnessing of hybrid vigour. This phenomenon occurs when the crossing of two inbred strains results in offspring with superior qualities.
The University of Cambridge's Professor Sir David Baulcombe, Regius Professor of Botany in the Department of Plant Sciences, hopes that a new molecular understanding of hybrid vigour could underpin technology-based plant modifications to stave off future food shortages. This time, he believes, "it will be possible to predict precisely which parents will produce the best hybrid and to fine-tune aspects of that improvement, whether it's yield, drought tolerance or disease resistance."
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The story begins with a small interfering ribonucleic acid (siRNA). Plants, like animals, have developed mechanisms to ward off disease and 'remember' past infections. One of the most important plant defences against viruses, as discovered by Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) funded Professor Baulcombe, is called RNA silencing.
Read more of this article on the University of Cambridge Research Features website.
