Scientists from the Institute of Bioorganic chemistry of RAS cultivated the plants of tobacco, emitting a weak green glow.
Science knows many living organisms are able to glow, but the plants in the list are not included. There is nothing surprising in the fact that removing bioluminescent plants has become a challenge for geneticists worldwide. In 2017, the Russian biotechnologists researched and described how the Vietnamese mushroom N. nambi synthesized luciferin, the substance which gives the mushroom the ability to glow. It turned out that the substance is formed from the coffee acid, which in nature can be found in the quality of product of plant metabolism.
Deciphering the genetic mechanism responsible for this process, scientists have built into the genome of tobacco N. tabacum genes of the fungus, encoding enzymes for the synthesis of luciferin from the coffee acid. As a result, they received tobacco plants that glow from 10 to 100 times brighter than previous experiments based on integration of the bacterial luminescent system in bacteria. The results published in the journal Nature Biotechnology.
Since coffee acid is synthesized in all plants, it is theoretically possible to force to light up any look. In this the prototypes showed that the emission is non-uniform: if the leaves glow with an intensity of approximately 20 billion photons per second per square centimeter of the surface, the flowers come with intensity 30 billion photons per second. The brightness can vary depending on environmental factors.
In an interview with N+1 geneticist Ilya Yampolsky noted that the luminescence intensity varies depending on the time of day, age of the plant and the stage of its life cycle. So, if the leaf dies before his “death” it flashes and then goes out completely.
Glowing plants is not just a stylish accessory for the design, but also a very useful tool for the study of their internal biochemistry. Independent illumination of the accompanying physiological processes that allow scientists to see in the area formerly inaccessible due to natural density of the plant tissues.
