Gene Discovery Suggests Way to Speed Up Plant Growth

Scientists at Duke Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy (IGSP) suggests that a single gene may be the solution in making perennial grasses grow faster for production of biofuels.

Perennial grasses such as switchgrass and miscanthus are candidates for biofuel production but it would take two years before these can be harvested due to the long process of developing their root system. Philip Benfrey, director of the IGSP Center for Systems Biology, together with his team, has devised a genomic method to reduce the time to harvest by identifying genes that "turn on" when the cells differentiate and then they turn these genes off quickly. They discovered a gene which they call UPBEAT1 (UBP1), that controls the gene expression of enzymes that are involved in differentiation and cell division. When the activity of this gene is disrupted, the plants would have fast-growing roots and have more and bigger cells.

Read more at http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2010/11/growfast.html.