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Seed Proteins May Help Plants Weather Drought

Timothy Spence

BRUSSELS, May 11 2011 (IPS) - British researchers are working on techniques to improve seeds chances of surviving drought by tapping the potential of little-known proteins that regulate water intake.

Lorenzo Frigerio and other plant scientists at the University of Warwick are researching seeds that would use water more sparingly and in turn boost crop defences against climate change in fast- growing developing nations that are the most vulnerable to freshwater shortages and food insecurity.

Asia’s thirst for water will exceed supply by 40 percent within two decades, experts told the Asian Development Bank (ADB) board of governors last week. With 80 percent of the region’s water consumed in agricultural production, water shortages could severely affect food supplies, ADB experts said.

Globally, 884 million people don’t have access to a safe water supply, according to a World Bank report released in April, and the numbers could grow to 3 billion by 2035. Some 1.75 billion people – a quarter of the Earth’s population – experience “multidimensional poverty”, including water deprivation, according to the U.N.’s Human Development Report (HDR).

Frigerio and his colleagues have focused on two seed-cell proteins that play a role in water intake. The first, plasma membrane intrinsic proteins (PIPs), serve as water channels on the outer part of a cell and are relatively well understood by biologists. But a recent key finding involves the role tonoplast intrinsic proteins (TIPS) appear to play in regulating water intake.

The team has found that TIPs are more involved in water management during the fragile stage of seed development and germination. It was a “completely serendipitous” discovery made during other observations, Frigerio told IPS.

Learning how TIPs regulate water intake could lead to genetic modification of plant seeds to give them a better chance to survive dry spells – especially during the fragile stage when leaves begin to sprout and the thirsty young plant starts to develop. Ultimate success will depend on whether scientists can regulate the number of TIPs on the cell membrane so they act like gates, channelling only enough water molecules for seed nourishment.

“We think this is the most promising area of intervention… to improve the efficiency of seeding establishment,” Frigerio said.

After three years of laboratory work, the researchers are cautious about their discovery and Frigerio says that if further experiments on TIPs succeed in regulating water intake, it could still be five years before the techniques are used to develop drought-resistant food crops. “The research is extremely preliminary,” he said.

Experiments so far focus on a single genus of flowering plants that are favoured by biologists for their prolific growth – the arabidopsis, a member of the mustard family.

The work at Warwick’s School of Life Sciences is part of an array of research into plant and human health funded through a 12-million-euro (17.8 million dollar) European Union (EU) Framework Programme grant. The grants are designed to foster Europe-wide scientific collaboration.

If commercially viable, the Warwick techniques could trigger concerns about genetic manipulation of crops – despite their potential for improving food supplies. The EU maintains some of the world’s toughest safety and labelling rules on genetically modified, or GM, foods. Six nations – Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary and Luxembourg – have invoked a provision of EU rules that allows them to ban the sale or production of GM foods.

European public opinion historically has been extremely wary of GM products. A poll conducted last year by the EU’s ‘Eurobarometer’ survey agency showed 70 percent of respondents felt GM food is “fundamentally unnatural”, 54 percent said it is not good for the health, and 43 percent said it is not good for developing countries. Just 23 percent said the development of GM foods should be encouraged.

The survey was conducted in January and February 2010 and published in October. The results are based on interviews with more 26,671 people in the 27-nation bloc and have a margin of error ranging form 1.9 to 3.1 percentage points.

Such attitudes are not stopping scientists from searching for ways to make food crops more resilient – a main focus of research for plant biologists. “There will be no progress towards food security or protecting crops in a changing climate without genetic modification,” Frigerio explained. “And that’s simply a given.”

Frigerio’s research comes at a time of growing worries about food security and stress on freshwater supplies, which account for less than 3 percent of Earth’s water, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

U.N. relief officials recently warned that insufficient rainfall in East Africa is jeopardising food corps and causing livestock to perish. Some 2.4 million Somalis – 32 percent of the population – and 2 million Ethiopians need of food and water because of delayed seasonal rains. Parts of Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda are also affected.

A report released in early May by the U.S. government-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network says that even if rains return to normal this month, it may be too late for crops. Rainfall is off by as much as 250 millimetres – half the normal amount – in some areas, though heavy rains were reported in parts of East Africa this week.