Gaining an understanding of how plants feel about zinc can help to grow more nutritious crops.

More than 2 billion people worldwide suffer from malnutrition due to zinc deficiency. Led by the University of Copenhagen, an international team of researchers has discovered how plants perceive zinc and uses this knowledge to increase plant zinc uptake, leading to an increase in content seed sink by 50 percent.

The new experience may one day be applied to more nutritious crop cultivation.

Zinc deficiency and other essential dietary nutrition is one of the leading causes of malnutrition worldwide. It is estimated that more than two billion people suffer from zinc deficiency, a disorder that can lead to weak immune systems, mental disorders, and stunting.

Among other things, malnutrition can be caused by infertile agricultural land, which affects the nutrient content of staple crops such as rice, wheat and cosmetics.

But imagine that it was possible to turn a crop, at the seed level, that forced them to ingest a turbocharge of zinc, iron, or other nutrients, and force them to absorb more nutrients than would be necessary. them otherwise. Researchers at the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences of the University of Copenhagen have done so using the cress thale plant (Arabidopsis thaliana).

“For the first time ever, we have shown that by using a molecular ‘conversion’ in the plant, we can make the plant absorb more zinc than would otherwise be the case. without obvious adverse effects on the plant, ”says the study’s lead author, Associate Professor Ana Assunção of the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences.

Plants absorbed 50 percent more zinc

Zinc benefits humans by helping to maintain a wide range of chemical processes and proteins that run within our bodies. If these processes stop working properly, we tend to get sick. For plants, zinc deficiency greatly affects growth, which is adversely affected if there is no zinc.

Researchers have long made an effort to understand how plants increase and decrease the amount of zinc. Ana Assunção and her colleagues have become the first to identify two specific proteins from cress thale that are zinc-sensitive and test the plant’s ability to absorb zinc and carried throughout plants.

By altering the properties of these sensors, or molecular “conversion”, which control a network of tightly connected zinc carriers, the researchers succeeded in forcing more zinc to be absorbed.

“Simply put, by making a small change to the sensor, we have made the plant believe that it was in a permanent state with a lack of zinc. This kept the plant taking a sink with the plant on. reduced and this resulted in an increase in zinc content in the seeds as much as 50 percent compared to a conventional plant, ”says Grmay Lilay, first author in the study, Postdoc at Assunção’s Lab.

Next thing: rice and beans

The researchers have proven that it is possible to increase zinc uptake in their experimental plant, but the next step is to reproduce the results in real crops. And the researchers are already on track to do just that.

We are currently working to reproduce our products in the bean, rice, and tomato plants as well. If we succeed, we will realize some exciting opportunities to develop more nutritious and hybrid crops. Biofortification is a sustainable solution to improve the micronutrient content in the human diet. “

Ana Assunção, Principal Research Author and Associate Professor, Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of Copenhagen

In the long run, the results of the researchers could be supplemented by the use of CRISPR gene editing or by the selection of naturally occurring crop varieties with a particularly good nutritional potential. such as the inclusion of zinc. “The availability of large genomic resources will aid our efforts in finding crop varieties that are likely to show a higher concentration of zinc,” concluded Grmay Lilay.