Homecoming: rewinding the reductive evolution of the chloroplast genome for increasing crop yields

Briardo Llorente; María Eugenia Segretin; Estefanía Giannini; Celina Lobais; Marcelo E Juárez; Ian T Paulsen; Nicolás E Blanco

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-26975-5

Homecoming: rewinding the reductive evolution of the chloroplast genome for increasing crop yields

Nat Commun. 2021 Nov 18;12(1):6734. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-26975-5.

Authors

Briardo Llorente¹, María Eugenia Segretin^{2

3}, Estefanía Giannini⁴, Celina Lobais⁵, Marcelo E Juárez⁶, Ian T Paulsen⁴, Nicolás E Blanco⁷

Affiliations

¹ ARC Center of Excellence in Synthetic Biology, Department of Molecular Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia. briardo.llorente@mq.edu.au.
² Laboratorio de Biotecnología Vegetal, Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Genética y Biología Molecular "Dr. Héctor N. Torres" (INGEBI-CONICET), (C1428ADN), Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina. segretin@dna.uba.ar.
³ Departamento de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Celular, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, (C1428EGA), Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina. segretin@dna.uba.ar.
⁴ ARC Center of Excellence in Synthetic Biology, Department of Molecular Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia.
⁵ Center of Photosynthetic and Biochemical Studies (CEFOBI-CONICET), Faculty of Biochemical Science and Pharmacy, Rosario National University, S2002LRK, Rosario, Argentina.
⁶ Laboratorio de Biotecnología Vegetal, Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Genética y Biología Molecular "Dr. Héctor N. Torres" (INGEBI-CONICET), (C1428ADN), Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
⁷ Center of Photosynthetic and Biochemical Studies (CEFOBI-CONICET), Faculty of Biochemical Science and Pharmacy, Rosario National University, S2002LRK, Rosario, Argentina. blanco@cefobi-conicet.gov.ar.

Abstract

Developing more productive and sustainable crops will be essential to achieving food security in coming decades. A core process in plant evolution has been the transfer of chloroplast-encoded genes to the nuclear genome. We propose reverting this process as a new approach to improve plant disease resistance and photosynthesis in future crops.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Chloroplasts / genetics*
Crop Production / methods*
Crop Production / trends
Crops, Agricultural / classification
Crops, Agricultural / genetics*
Crops, Agricultural / metabolism
Disease Resistance / genetics
Evolution, Molecular*
Gene Expression Regulation, Plant
Genetic Engineering / methods
Genome, Chloroplast / genetics*
Genome, Plant / genetics*
Photosynthesis / genetics
Plant Diseases / genetics