Descripción del proyecto
Avance de la ingeniería genética en las plantas
Los cultivos mejorados genéticamente han sido modificados genéticamente para poseer rasgos deseables específicos, como una mayor resistencia a plagas, enfermedades o estrés ambiental, un contenido nutricional mejorado y un mayor rendimiento de los cultivos. Aunque han suscitado debates en torno a la seguridad y las preocupaciones medioambientales, los cultivos mejorados genéticamente también ofrecen posibles beneficios para abordar los retos de la seguridad alimentaria y reducir la necesidad de plaguicidas nocivos. El equipo del proyecto GENEVOSYN, financiado por el Consejo Europeo de Investigación, pretende desarrollar tecnologías y métodos novedosos para la ingeniería genética de plantas de cultivo. Dichos métodos utilizarán genomas sintéticos y naturales con el objetivo de crear nuevas especies de cultivos y mejorar las existentes, allanando el camino para la explotación de cultivos en diversas aplicaciones.
Objetivo
GENEVOSYN has three highly ambitious objectives that will enable the engineering of new generations of crop plants. The project consists of three complementary workpackages (WPs) and will use both synthetic genomes and naturally available genomes as raw material for novel biotechnology and synthetic biology approaches. It will employ experimental gene and genome transfer as well as recently discovered natural (horizontal) genome transfer processes to generate new crop varieties and species. In WP1, the plastid (chloroplast) will be developed as a highly efficient platform for synthetic biology applications in plants. This will be accomplished by pursuing bottom-up and top-down synthetic biology approaches. They include the construction of large synthetic multigene operons towards introducing new complex metabolic pathways into plants, and the design, synthesis, assembly and booting up of radically redesigned synthetic genomes that ultimately will allow us to expand the genetic code and thereby the amino acid repertoire of plant cells. In WP2, GENEVOSYN aims at developing a technology for mitochondrial genome engineering in plants. The possibility to alter the genetic information in plant mitochondria by transformation would revolutionize both basic and applied research on plant mitochondria, and pave the way to harnessing the enormous potential of mitochondrial biotechnology. Finally, WP3 will exploit recently discovered horizontal genome transfer processes for the creation of novel crop species and the improvement of existing ones. To this end, we will use grafting-assisted horizontal genome transfer between crop species in the nightshade family (Solanaceae) to (i) generate new combinations of nuclear and plastid genomes and determine the impact of the plastid genome and specific plastid genes on plant growth and stress tolerance, and (ii) produce novel (synthetic) species that arise from the combination of entire nuclear genomes of existing species.
Ámbito científico
- natural sciencesbiological sciencessynthetic biology
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagriculture
- natural scienceschemical sciencesorganic chemistryamines
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticsgenomes
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiochemistrybiomoleculesproteinsenzymes
Programa(s)
Régimen de financiación
ERC-ADG - Advanced GrantInstitución de acogida
80539 Munchen
Alemania