Berkeley Lab Develops Protein Characterization System to Aid Gene Editing in Plants

Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory of the US Department of Energy recently developed a genome-scale way to navigate through the regulatory role of transcription factors in plants. This will allow more research on gene regulatory networks and the identification of genes that can be tapped to optimize genetic engineering in plants.

The initial objective of the study was to develop a method to simultaneously characterize various transcription factors, which are proteins responsible for gene expression and a plant's physiological traits. To do this, the researchers used a transient expression system that they had developed before to build synthetic biology tools in plants. The system allowed them to characterize over 400 transcriptional effector domains in Nicotiana benthamiana for the first time.

Interestingly, the study also allowed the researchers to identify similar mechanisms of transcriptional regulation across distantly related eukaryotes. They determined the shared functionality of transcription factor regulation in plants and yeast, which they consider a deeply conserved mechanism of gene regulation. They further demonstrated how machine learning algorithms trained on yeast could work to identify regulatory domains in plants.

The study has implications for agriculture and sustainability which will allow scientists to develop strategies to improve agricultural practices and mitigate environmental challenges.

Read more in Berkeley Lab.