Gene-Edited Wheat and the Future of Farming
Explore how CRISPR wheat could reduce fertilizer use, ease environmental harm and shift farming practices.
Public opinion on genetically modified crops is often fraught with skepticism, yet a new study from the University of California, Davis, offers a compelling example of how gene editing could address both environmental and agricultural challenges.
Researchers have developed wheat that can essentially “fertilize itself” by producing higher levels of a naturally occurring compound called apigenin. This compound encourages soil bacteria to convert atmospheric nitrogen into a form the plants can use, potentially reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers, lowering costs for farmers and minimizing harmful runoff that contributes to waterway dead zones and greenhouse gas emissions.
The study builds on the team’s earlier work with rice. It represents a novel approach to a long-standing agricultural problem: providing cereal crops with essential nutrients in a sustainable way.
Technology Networks spoke with lead author Dr. Hiromi Tajima, to explore the science behind this CRISPR-edited wheat, the ethical considerations and what the future may hold for gene edited crops.
How does the gene-edited wheat stimulate its own fertilizer production, and how does it differ from traditional (genetically modified organisms (GMOs) or hybrid crops?
Hiromi Tajima, PhD (HT):
This gene-edited wheat produces more of a flavonoid called apigenin, a compound that plants naturally produce. Apigenin promotes bacteria to form biofilms, a sticky layer of sugars and proteins that favors the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen by nitrogen-fixing bacteria. The ammonium, converted from the nitrogen gas in the air by the nitrogen-fixing bacteria, acts as the nitrogen fertilizer for the wheat.
Gene editing, GMO and hybrid crops are three different methods that could achieve the same goal or “trait”. A trait can be more apigenin content, plant pathogen resistance, higher yields or better taste, etc. The prominent difference between these methods is their efficiency and specificity. Gene editing can achieve a desired trait most efficiently and very specifically.
RLS:
HT:
Mutations can happen at any time, in every living cell. It happens randomly, and most often they are repaired by the cell’s own repairing machinery. Gene editing is a technology that can introduce a mutation in a specific gene. CRISPR/Cas9 is a specific mutation-inducing reagent that is introduced through transformation, the same way as GMOs. However, the reagent is segregated from the plant genome after gene editing is done.
This is the big difference from GMOs. Gene-edited plants will lose any exogenous DNA sequence of the mutation regent eventually, while a GMO needs to keep the transgene to achieve the desired trait.
Choosing gene editing over GMOs might reduce some concerns, such as allergens or toxins for humans, although these are unlikely to be present in GMOs.
In gene editing, only a few nucleotides are changed (deleted or inserted). Plant genomes contain 15–20 billion nucleotides, and they can be naturally mutated. On the other hand, GMOS can contain several thousand nucleotides from exogenous genes inserted into the genome.
However, more caution needs to be paid to traits rather than methods. For example, Bacillus thuringiensis toxin crops, a trait introduced to fight against pests, can develop toxin-resistant pests that could have negative consequences for agriculture. The trait we chose, higher apigenin content, could have potential health benefits to humans, such as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Thus, choosing flavonoids as a trait was a comfortable approach for us to take.
RLS:
HT:
RLS:
HT:
Changing regulations governing new technologies can be driven by people’s concerns. It is becoming important for us, as scientists, to communicate, especially about new technologies such as gene editing, to reduce people’s anxieties.
Gene editing is already being applied commercially in many countries.
RLS:
Do you think CRISPR-edited crops like this wheat should be labeled differently from conventional crops?
HT:
I don’t think so. It sounds like a question like “Do we need to label electronics with ‘manual assembly’ or ‘machine assembly’?”
From the moment human beings started agriculture, the manipulation of plant genomes has happened by selecting and crossing of desired trait plants, such as better taste or higher yield.
“Traditional breeding or gene editing” can be translated to “decades of crossbreeding to acquire a desired trait with some undesired traits or one year of specific desired gene modification.” Different methods can achieve the same goal, and what matters more is the trait, which is the function of the final product.
RLS:
HT:
I don’t see it taking over the traditional breeding. On the contrary, these methodologies are complementary.
