Can genetic engineering help food crops better tolerate drought?

A review of innovative technologies in OMICS journal

2014-09-25

(Press-News.org) New Rochelle, NY, September 25, 2014—The staggering growth rate of the global population demands innovative and sustainable solutions to increase food production by as much as 70-100% in the next few decades. In light of environmental changes, more drought-tolerant food crops are essential. The latest technological advances and future directions in regulating genes involved in stress tolerance in crops is presented in a Review article in OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology, the peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the OMICS website.

Coauthors Roel Rabara and Paul Rushton, Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center, Dallas, TX, and Prateek Tripathi, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, focus on the role of transcription factors, described as "master regulators" because they are important components of many genetic regulatory pathways and may be able to control clusters of genes. Drought tolerance is a complex trait that is regulated by multiple genes.

In the article "The Potential of Transcription Factor-Based Genetic Engineering in Improving Crop Tolerance to Drought," the authors describe current strategies for using transcription factors to improve drought tolerance and discuss how novel, advanced technologies will help study promising, genetically engineered food crops under field growing conditions.

"With limited water supply continuing to constrain food crop production, understanding and improving crop tolerance to drought is a grand challenge for 21st century biology and medicine, and to feed a massive world population," says OMICS Editor-in-Chief Vural Özdemir, MD, PhD, DABCP, Gaziantep University, Faculty of Communications and Office of the President, Gaziantep, Turkey, and Co-Founder, the Data-Enabled Life Sciences Alliance International (DELSA Global), Seattle, WA. "Transcription factors are veritable candidates for innovation in the next generation of transgenic crops because of their natural role in plant growth and development. Field studies (not only greenhouse measures) will provide additional insights to measure their actual impact and innovation. This state of the art review article offers a timely analysis and topline summary distilled from the past several decades of leading literature."

INFORMATION: About the Journal OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published monthly online, which covers genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and multi-omics innovations. The Journal explores advances in the era of post-genomic biology and medicine and focuses on the integration of OMICS, data analyses and modeling, and applications of high-throughput approaches to study biological problems. Social, ethical, and public policy aspects of the large-scale biology and 21st century data-enabled sciences are also considered. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the OMICS website.

About the Publisher Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many areas of science and biomedical research, including Journal of Computational Biology, ASSAY and Drug Development Technologies, and Zebrafish. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 80 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.

[Attachments] See images for this press release:

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Goats better than chemicals for curbing invasive marsh grass

2014-09-25

DURHAM, N.C. -- Herbivores, not herbicides, may be the most effective way to combat the spread of one of the most invasive plants now threatening East Coast salt marshes, a new Duke University-led study finds. Phragmites australis, or the common reed, is a rapid colonizer that has overrun many coastal wetlands from New England to the Southeast. A non-native perennial, it can form dense stands of grass up to 10 feet high that block valuable shoreline views of the water, kill off native grasses, and alter marsh function. Land managers traditionally have used chemical ...

Smallest-possible diamonds form ultra-thin nanothread

2014-09-25

Washington, D.C.— A team including Carnegie's Malcolm Guthrie and George Cody has, for the first time, discovered how to produce ultra-thin "diamond nanothreads" that promise extraordinary properties, including strength and stiffness greater than that of today's strongest nanotubes and polymer fibers. Such exceedingly strong, stiff, and light materials have an array of potential applications, everything from more-fuel efficient vehicles or even the science fictional-sounding proposal for a "space elevator." Their work is published in Nature Materials. The team—led by ...

Genes causing pediatric glaucoma contribute to future stroke

2014-09-25

(Edmonton, AB) Every year in Canada about 50,000 people suffer from a stroke, caused either by the interruption of blood flow or uncontrolled bleeding in the brain. While many environmental risk factors exist, including high blood pressure and smoking, stroke risk is also frequently inherited. Unfortunately, remarkably little is known regarding stroke's genetic basis. A study from the University of Alberta, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, extends knowledge of stroke's genetic underpinnings and demonstrates that in some cases it originates in infancy. The ...

Unlocking long-hidden mechanisms of plant cell division

2014-09-25

AMHERST, Mass. – Along with copying and splitting DNA during division, cells must have a way to break safely into two viable daughter cells, a process called cytokinesis. But the molecular basis of how plant cells accomplish this without mistakes has been unclear for many years. In a new paper by cell biologist Magdalena Bezanilla of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, she and her doctoral student Shu-Zon Wu present a detailed new model that for the first time proposes how plant cells precisely position a "dynamic and complex" structure called a phragmoplast at the ...

Risk of esophageal cancer decreases with height

2014-09-25

Bethesda, MD (Sept. 25, 2014) — Taller individuals are less likely to develop esophageal cancer and it's precursor, Barrett's esophagus, according to a new study1 in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. "Individuals in the lowest quartile of height (under 5'7" for men and 5'2" for women) were roughly twice as likely as individuals in the highest quartile of height (taller than 6' for men and 5'5" for women) to have Barrett's esophagus or esophageal cancer," said Aaron P. Thrift, ...

Putting the squeeze on quantum information

2014-09-25

CIFAR researchers have shown that information stored in quantum bits can be exponentially compressed without losing information. The achievement is an important proof of principle, and could be useful for efficient quantum communications and information storage. Compression is vital for modern digital communication. It helps movies to stream quickly over the Internet, music to fit into digital players, and millions of telephone calls to bounce off of satellites and through fibre optic cables. But it has not been clear if information stored in quantum bits, or qubits, ...

Looking for a spouse or a companion

2014-09-25

New Rochelle, NY, September 25, 2014—The increasing popularity of social media, online dating sites, and mobile applications for meeting people and initiating relationships has made online dating an effective means of finding a future spouse. The intriguing results of a new study that extends this comparison of online/offline meeting venues to include non-marital relationships, and explores whether break-up rates for both marital and non-marital relationships differ depending on whether a couple first met online or offline are reported in an article in Cyberpsychology, ...

World's smallest reference material is big plus for nanotechnology

2014-09-25

If it's true that good things come in small packages, then the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) can now make anyone working with nanoparticles very happy. NIST recently issued Reference Material (RM) 8027, the smallest known reference material ever created for validating measurements of these man-made, ultrafine particles between 1 and 100 nanometers (billionths of a meter) in size. RM 8027 consists of five hermetically sealed ampoules containing one milliliter of silicon nanoparticles—all certified to be close to 2 nanometers in diameter—suspended ...

A galaxy of deception

2014-09-25

Astronomers usually have to peer very far into the distance to see back in time, and view the Universe as it was when it was young. This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of galaxy DDO 68, otherwise known as UGC 5340, was thought to offer an exception. This ragged collection of stars and gas clouds looks at first glance like a recently-formed galaxy in our own cosmic neighbourhood. But, is it really as young as it looks? Astronomers have studied galactic evolution for decades, gradually improving our knowledge of how galaxies have changed over cosmic history. ...

The ideal age of sexual partners is different for men and women

2014-09-25

New evolutionary psychology research shows gender differences in age preferences regarding sexual partners. Men and women have different preferences regarding the age of their sexual partners and women's preferences are better realized than are men's. Regarding the age of their actual sexual partners, the difference is however much smaller. Researchers in psychology at Åbo Akademi University in Turku, Finland, suggest that this pattern reflect the fact that when it comes to mating, women control the market. Grounding their interpretation in evolutionary theory, the ...

First-in-human study of once-daily oral treatment for obesity that mimics metabolic effects of gastric bypass without surgery

Rural preschoolers more likely to be living with overweight and abdominal obesity, and spend more time on screens, than their urban counterparts

Half of popular TikToks about “food noise” mention medications, mainly weight-loss drugs, to manage intrusive thoughts about food

Global survey reveals high disconnect between perceptions of obesity among people living with the disease and their doctors

Study reveals distinct mechanisms of action of tirzepatide and semaglutide

Mount Sinai Health System to honor Dennis S. Charney, MD, Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, for 18 years of leadership and service at annual Crystal Party  

Mapping a new brain network for naming

Healthcare company Watkins-Conti announces publication of positive clinical trial results for FDA-cleared Yōni.Fit bladder support

Analysis of the disease spectrum characteristics of inherited metabolic liver diseases in two hepatology specialist hospitals in Beijing over the past 20 years

Can genetic engineering help food crops better tolerate drought?

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: