So then why are there no plants that can glow? Maybe there are less advantages for plants to glow than we think. By glowing, these flowers could advertise the existence of honey, which would encourage pollinating hawkmoths to visit them. If plants had the power to glow, I believe that luminous flowers would bloom in forests at night. It is known that various organisms such as animals and fungi (e.g., mushrooms) emit light, but this has not yet been discovered in plants. “This is essential if the technique will, literally, be able to throw new light on fundamental biological processes.Mysteries in Science: Why don’t glowing plants exist?Ītsushi Kawakita (Professor, Botanical Gardens) “The challenge now is to figure out how to make this engineered bioluminescence responsive to specific environmental, developmental, chemical or pathogenic stimuli,” he said. Prof John Carr, from the University of Cambridge, also welcomed the work, but said there was more to be done. The system reported here will make that process easier,” he said. “Many luminescent marker genes have up until now required special light sources and/or cameras to visualise the location of expression. Gary Foster, a professor in molecular plant pathology at the University of Bristol, who was not involved in the research, said the glowing plants would mainly be used by scientists rather than for applications such as plant-based street lights, but were nonetheless welcome. “You should be able to see the light coming only from the tissues where the hormone is currently active,” he said. Sarkisyan said that in the future the team could insert the fungal genes into the plant’s DNA near genes that were activated by certain hormones. Photograph: Planta/MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences The team say that is important as the process involves a luciferin produced from a chemical that is naturally present in plants – caffeic acid. The new research takes a different tack, harnessing the recently discovered process by which fungi emit light. What’s more, said Sarkisyan, the latter approach appears to be toxic to plants. However, these approaches have had drawbacks: the delivery of a luciferin on tiny particles is more expensive and is not self-sustained, while the incorporation of bacterial bioluminescence genes involves a cumbersome process that results in only a weak glow. Among previous approaches, researchers have delivered both luciferins and the enzymes necessary for bioluminescence into plants via nanoparticles, while other teams have incorporated bacterial genes for bioluminescence into plants. The latest research is not the first time scientists have created glowing greenery – a development that has led to suggestions of everything from plant-based street lights to self-illuminating Christmas trees. However, bioluminescence does not crop up naturally among plants. This occurs when enzymes act on chemicals known as luciferins within the organism, resulting in energy being released in the form of light. Numerous animals, microbes and mushrooms – from fireflies to honey fungi – can glow, a phenomenon known as bioluminescence. “We really hope to bring this to the market in a few years from now, once we make them a bit brighter, once we make the ornamental plants with this new technology, and once of course they pass all the existing safety regulations,” he added. It can also be used to monitor plant responses to various stresses and changes in the environment, such as drought or wounding by herbivores,” said Dr Karen Sarkisyan, the CEO of Planta, the startup that led the work, and a researcher at Imperial College London. “In the future this technology can be used to visualise activities of different hormones inside the plants over the lifetime of the plant in different tissues, absolutely non-invasively.
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