Chemical discovery gets reluctant seeds to sprout
New tool could help increase food supply

Date:
September 17, 2021
Source:
University of California - Riverside
Summary:
Seeds that would otherwise lie dormant will spring to life with
the aid of a new chemical.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Seeds that would otherwise lie dormant will spring to life with the aid
of a new chemical discovered by a UC Riverside-led team.


========================================================================== Plants have the ability to perceive drought. When they do, they
emit a hormone that helps them hold on to water. This same hormone,
ABA, sends a message to seeds that it isn't a good time to germinate,
leading to lower crop yields and less food in places where it's hot --
an increasingly long list as a result of climate change.

"If you block ABA, you mess with the chemical pathway that plants use
to prevent seed germination," said Aditya Vaidya, UCR project scientist
and study author. "Our new chemical, Antabactin, does exactly this. If we
apply it, we have shown that dormant seeds will sprout." Demonstrations
of Antabactin's effectiveness are described in a new paper published in
the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This work builds on the same team's creation of a chemical that mimics
the effects of the ABA hormone, produced by plants in response to
drought stress.

That chemical, Opabactin, slows a plant's growth so it conserves water
and doesn't wilt. It works by inducing plants to close tiny pores in
their leaves and stems, which prevents water from escaping.

Next, the team wanted to find a molecule that would have the opposite
effect, opening the pores, encouraging germination and increasing plant
growth. Though seed dormancy has largely been removed through breeding,
it is still a problem in some crops like lettuce.



==========================================================================
Sean Cutler, a UCR plant cell biology professor and study co-author,
said accelerating and slowing plant growth are important tools for
farmers. "Our research is all about managing both of these needs,"
he said.

To find Opabactin's opposite, Vaidya quickly made 4,000 derivatives
of it. "He found a needle in the chemical haystack," Cutler said, "The
compound he created blocks receptors to ABA, and is unusually potent."
In their paper, the team members showed that applying Antabactin to
barley and tomato seeds accelerated germination. Conceivably, both
Antabactin and Opabactin could work together to help crops flourish in
a world becoming drier and hotter.

Once Antabactin has helped seeds sprout into healthy plants, a farmer
might start saving water early in the growing season by spraying
Opabactin. This way, enough water is "banked" for when the plants start flowering.

"Just like a woman requires higher levels of nutrition during pregnancy,
plants require more water and nutrition when they're flowering and about
to bear fruits," Vaidya said. "This is true for most crops, especially
for economically relevant crops like corn and wheat." The research team continues to investigate variations in seed dormancy induced by ABA in a variety of other plant species. They also want to examine Antabactin's
use as a chemical tool to increase plant growth in greenhouse settings
where water isn't limited.

"We hope to identify key molecular players that govern seed dormancy, ultimately reducing the impact of lost crop yields due to unfortunately
timed plantings or poor seed germination," Vaidya said.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
University_of_California_-_Riverside. Note: Content may be edited for
style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Aditya S. Vaidya, Francis C. Peterson, James Eckhardt, Zenan
Xing, Sang-
Youl Park, Wim Dejonghe, Jun Takeuchi, Oded Pri-Tal, Julianna
Faria, Dezi Elzinga, Brian F. Volkman, Yasushi Todoroki, Assaf
Mosquna, Masanori Okamoto, Sean R. Cutler. Click-to-lead design
of a picomolar ABA receptor antagonist with potent activity in
vivo. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021; 118
(38): e2108281118 DOI: 10.1073/ pnas.2108281118 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/09/210917090425.htm

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