Plant seeds germinate under conditions such as moisture and temperature. During this process, the metabolism of some chemicals in the seeds becomes active. Japanese scientists have recently found a gene that can speed up the process of chemical metabolism in seeds, reviving the seeds from their sleep. According to a news bulletin issued by the Japan Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, there is a plant hormone called abscisic acid in the plant body that can make the plant leaves fall off and the plant to go into a dormant state. When the seed is dormant, this "plant hypnotic drug" begins to accumulate in the seed. After the seed absorbs water, the accumulated abscisic acid is metabolized and decomposed, and the seed germinates quickly. Previous studies have shown that a hydroxylase can hydroxylate the methyl group in the 8th carbon atom on the carbon chain during the process of abscisic acid metabolism, thereby inactivating abscisic acid. In this new study, scientists at the Institute of Botanical Sciences of the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research used Arabidopsis thaliana as an experimental material to start looking for genes encoding ABA gene. They found that the four subtypes of the gene cyp707a are involved in the synthesis of this hydroxylase. Among these four genes, only cyp707a2 was particularly active when the seeds germinated, and the seeds that lacked the gene "sleeped" very heavily and did not see germination. The scientists thus concluded that the cyp707a2 gene is the "key" to release the seed from dormancy. Adjusting seed germination time is an important agricultural issue. Take wheat as an example. Sometimes due to the weather, the wheat grains on the wheat ears will germinate before harvesting, and the starch and protein stored in the wheat grains will be decomposed and the quality will be greatly reduced. The scientists involved in the study speculated that genes other than cyp707a subtypes exist in plants other than Arabidopsis thaliana, and that if the substance that inhibits the activity of cyp707a2 gene can be developed, these difficulties can be overcome. In addition, abscisic acid is also a signal substance for adaptive response of plants to drought, low temperature, etc. Scientists plan to adjust the amount of abscisic acid synthesized by plants from the gene level, and cultivate new varieties that are resistant to drought and low temperatures.
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