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IMAGE: Nanosensors implanted inside plant leaves can send signals that communicate the stress-induced signaling pathways of plants to a smartphone
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Credit: Felice C. Frankel
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Sensors can intercept distress signals within plants to reveal how they respond to different types of stress.
- Plant responses can be sent directly to remote electronic devices such as cell phones, allowing remote monitoring in real time
- The nanobionic approach has a range of applications including studying how to improve crop performance on urban farms.
- The technology can potentially be applied to all types of plants.
Singapore, April 16, 2020 – Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), the MIT research firm in Singapore, and the Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory ( TLL) have developed a way to study and track the internal communication of living plants using carbon nanotube sensors that can be integrated into the leaves of plants.
Sensors can report signaling waves from plants to reveal how they respond to stresses such as injury, infection, heat and light damage, providing valuable real-time information for engineered plants to maximize crop performance.
The new nanobionic approach is explained in an article entitled “Real-time detection of wound-induced H2O2 signaling waves in plants with optical nanosensors” published in the prestigious online scientific journal Nature plants. It uses sensors to intercept the hydrogen peroxide signals that plants use to communicate internally, and displays the data on remote electronic devices such as cell phones, allowing agricultural scientists to remotely track plant health in real time.
“Plants have a very sophisticated form of internal communication, which we can now observe for the first time. That means that in real time, we can see the response of a living plant, communicating the specific type of stress it is experiencing,” says Michael Strano. , Senior Research Co-Director of Disruptive and Sustainable Technologies for Agricultural Precision (DiSTAP), an interdisciplinary research group under SMART. Professor Strano, who is the lead author of the article, is also a professor of chemical engineering at Carbon P. Dubbs at MIT.
Technology can provide much-needed data to inform a variety of agricultural applications, such as detecting different plant species for their ability to resist mechanical damage, light, heat, and other forms of stress, or studying how different species respond to pathogens. . It can also be used to study how plants respond to different growth conditions on urban farms.
“Plants that grow at high density are prone to avoiding shade, where they divert resources to grow taller, rather than putting energy into crop production, reducing overall crop yield,” says Professor Strano. “Our sensor allows us to intercept that stress signal and understand exactly the conditions and the mechanism that is happening upstream and downstream in the plant that is leading to avoidance of shade, leading to more complete crops.”
Traditionally, research in molecular biology has been limited to only specific plants that are susceptible to genetic manipulation, but this new technology can potentially be applied to any plant. Professor Strano’s team has already successfully used the approach by comparing eight different species, including spinach, strawberry plants, and arugula, and it could work for many more.
Funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF) Singapore, the Science, Technology and Research Agency (A * STAR) and the US Department of Energy’s Computer Science Graduate Scholarship Program. In the US, the study set out to integrate sensors into plants that would report on the health status of plants. The research team used a method called lipid exchange envelope penetration (LEEP), previously developed by Professor Strano’s laboratory, to incorporate the sensors into the leaves of the plants.
“I was training to become familiar with the technique, and in the training process I accidentally inflicted a wound on the floor. Then I saw this evolution of the hydrogen peroxide signal,” says the paper’s lead author and MIT graduate student Tedrick. . Thomas Salim Lew.
The release of hydrogen peroxide triggers the release of calcium between adjacent plant cells, stimulating them to release more hydrogen peroxide and creating a wave of danger signals throughout the leaf. While the wave of hydrogen peroxide stimulates plants to produce secondary metabolites that can help repair damage, these metabolites are also often the source of the flavors we want in our edible plants. Manipulating this can help farmers improve the taste of the plants we eat while optimizing plant performance.
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About disruptive and sustainable SMART technologies for agricultural precision (DiSTAP)
DiSTAP is one of the five Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRGs) of the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART). The DiSTAP program addresses profound problems in food production in Singapore and around the world by developing a suite of novel and impactful analytical, genetic and biosynthetic technologies. The goal is to fundamentally change how plants’ biosynthetic pathways are discovered, controlled, designed, and ultimately translated to meet global demand for food and nutrients. Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory (TLL), Nanyang University of Technology (NTU) and the National University of Singapore (NUS) are collaborating: developing new tools for measurement Continues important metabolites and plant hormones for new discovery, deeper understanding, and control of plant biosynthetic pathways in ways that are not yet possible, especially in the context of green leafy vegetables; leveraging these new techniques to design plants with highly desirable properties for global food security, including high-yield-yield production, resistance to drought and pathogens, and biosynthesis of high-value commercial products; develop tools to produce hydrophobic food components in microbes relevant to industry; develop new microbial and enzymatic technologies to produce volatile organic compounds that can protect and / or promote the growth of leafy vegetables; and applying these technologies to improve urban agriculture.
For more information, log in at: http: // distap.
About the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART)
The Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) is the MIT Research Company in Singapore, established by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in association with the Singapore National Research Foundation (NRF) since 2007. SMART It is the first entity in the Campus of Research of Excellence and Technological Company (CREATE) developed by NRF. SMART serves as an intellectual and innovation hub for research interactions between MIT and Singapore. Cutting-edge research projects in areas of interest to Singapore and MIT are carried out at SMART. SMART currently comprises an Innovation Center and five Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRG): Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), Critical Analysis for the Manufacture of Personalized Medicine (CAMP), Disruptive and sustainable technologies for agricultural precision (DiSTAP), Future urban mobility (FM) and Low Energy Electronic Systems (LEES).
SMART research is funded by the National Research Foundation Singapore under the CREATE program. For more information, visit – http: // smart.
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