Plant Biotechnology Flashcards
Why are plants important?
They produce food (cheaper now than historically), oxygen, medicine, building materials and fuel
They are 83% of the Earth’s biomass (Bar-On et al, 2018) however since the 1st agricultural revolution, humans have halved the mass of plants to 1Tt (Eldacham et al, 2020)
There is a need for a 2nd agricultural revolution as global grain production is in decline with a growing population
Global energy consumption has increased to ~0.5 zJ from ~0.2 zJ in 1965
Name some examples of plants used medicinally
Mint -> gastrointestinal, bronchitis, motion sickness
Saffron -> depression, digestion
Parsley -> aphrodisiac, kidney cleanser diuretic
Olive -> omega-3 for improved brain functions no lowered LDL cholesterol, prevent strokes and diabetes
Fennel -> anti-inflammatory, stimulates appetite
Why are food plants important?
Meat production is very water intensive versus plants (per kg)
However photosynthesis only converts 5% of the sun energy to sugars thus is very inefficient
Whole food chain as animals eat plants
What are some dangers plants face?
Herbivore attacks such as aphid attack leads to plants producing signals to warn other plants of attack (aphids feed on sap and destroy plant)
Infections -> plant diseases such as blight cause plant tissue to die and can spread rapidly
Drought -> lack of moisture in the soil stresses the plant
How do plants communicate with each other?
Warning signals -> volatile organic compounds are released into the air
Defence response -> VOCs repel aphids and attract aphid hunting wasps
Closed stomata -> prevent water loss
Chemical communication -> stressed plant secretes soluble chemicals from roots which are absorbed by neighbours
Fungi network -> warning signals transmit through mycorrhizae
Give some statistics about malaria
Mosquitoes are moving further north due to climate change thus a larger population is exposed to the malaria parasite (Plasmodium)
212 million infections reported in 2015
Describe how artemisinin is produced in sweet wormwood
Produced in the trichomes (oil sacs) on leaves and contains 0.1-0.6 % artemisinin
Describe how antiviral drugs were produced in plants against SARS-CoV-2
100 natural polyphenols from plants were tested against SARS-CoV-2 via RdRp inhibition and 4 potential antiviral drugs were discovered
What are the 3 different levels plants can be grown at?
Field
Greenhouse
Bioreactor
Describe field growing conditions
Smaller footprint due to less space
Top leaves get more sunlight than lower leaves thus it is hard to equalise conditions
Describe greenhouse growing conditions
Bigger leaves are produced
Plants are easy to transform
More space but more yield than fields
Describe bioreactor growing conditions
A cell culture of one type of plant cell i.e. roots/leaves
More control
More expensive
What are 4 ways to increase product formation?
Select a high yield line
Start off with a producing part
Modify the media for growth and product fromation
Feed precursors or feed intermediates for bioconversion
What are the benefits of producing high value chemicals in a plant cell culture?
Consistency of output
No contamination from soil/viruses/heavy metals
Can be used for slow growing, rare and endangered plants
Higher yield of desired product per mass compared to growing the whole plant
Environmentally friendlier as less toxic solvents and less water and land are used
Cheap and made of film thus disposable
Why was Taxus baccata (English yew) grown in a cell culture?
Grows too slow to harvest the amount of paclitaxel required
Difficult to synthetically synthesise the paclitaxel pathway
Paclitaxel is an anti cancer drug
Plant Cell Fermentation Technology uses no hazardous solvents compared to direct plant extraction
