International scientists unravel moss genetic code
Scientists from Germany, the UK, Japan and the US have unravelled the genetic code of one of the most common plants in the world: moss. Just one cell thick, moss was a primitive plant and has developed to withstand cold, heat and drought without roots or complex leaves. The ability to survive severe dehydration and then regrow when watered could be extremely useful as the Earth's climate changes. The genetic code for moss, or Physocomitrella patens, is published in the journal Science. The code is just under 500 million 'letters' long - three times the length of the weed Arabidopsis' code, and the same length as that of rice. Moss is the first non-flowering or 'lower' plant to be sequenced. 'Physocomitrella is a really useful plant to study,' explains Dr Andy Cuming of the University of Leeds in the UK. 'In addition to being the link between water-based algae and land plants, it also has many important characteristics which make it special. By sequencing the genome, we can start to identify their genetic basis and use the knowledge for crop improvement.' The plant has a single 'haploid' genome, rather than a double genome from male and female parents. This makes it easier to identify which characteristics link to which gene, according to the Leeds team. The moss is also able to integrate new DNA into a defined target in the genome (unlike most other plants, which integrate new DNA randomly). This means that the moss genome can be modified far more easily than that of other plants, and can thus be used as a 'green factory' to produce pharmaceutical products. 'If we can discover what mechanisms cause the Physocomitrella genome to integrate DNA in this way, we may be able to transfer those to other plants, to allow more controlled modification of their genomes,' says Dr Cuming. The scientist also believes that many of the useful genomes in Physocomitrella remain present in 'higher' crop plants, but are no longer active in the same way. 'So rather than adding new DNA, we'll just be activating what's already there to create the properties we want,' he says. The sequencing was carried out at the Joint Genome Institute in Berkeley, California, the US, which invites international scientists to compete to use its sequencing facilities.
Countries
Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, United States