Joint experimentation and modelling is required to understand and use plants
Providing plants with a resilience to drought or making them suitable for growth on saline soil. Or making a higher yielding plant or a plant that requires less phosphate. This is what systems biologists of Plant Research International are working on. They are integrating all levels of the plant, from genes to the plant in its environment, not only to gain a better understanding of the various processes that are playing at different levels but also of their mutual correlation.
True understanding of the growth of the plant requires intensive collaboration between scientists who are working at different levels. This also means a continuous modelling cycle. Biologists and chemists are in the lab or in the field unravelling which components are involved in a specific process. They are searching for genes, proteins, metabolites. They study what is happening at the level of the cell, the organ or even the total ecosystem, and are generating large amounts of data.
Bio-information scientists are interrelating the data and modellers are using this for drawing up mathematical models in which they attempt to describe the processes. If the model would not yield an adequate description of the actual situation, a new lab phase and the new modelling phase are following, right through to the model giving an adequate description of reality.
This finally yields a predictive model, consisting of mathematical comparisons, describing the processes in the living plant. This makes it possible to change certain processes in such a way that this, e.g., results in a plant showing good growth under low-rainfall conditions.
 |
Making smart use of hundreds of entries of plant data speeds up breeding
Automatically gathering hundreds of data entries about the growth of a plant is child’s play these days. If you organise this information well, you can easily select the plant with the best genetic characteristics.
|
 |
Experiments and mathematics reveal how tomato produces flavonoids
Tomato plants produce flavonoids, anti-oxidants which may be good for our health. But how do tomatoes do that? If you know the answer to that question, you can ultimately start managing production yourself. Researchers at Plant Research International are working on it.
|
|
|
Ordering data in order to understand the processes in a plant
Thanks to modern techniques, researchers can establish precisely which substances occur where in a plant and which genes are expressed there at any one time. But how do you link all that information together? That is a job for the bioinformation scientists at Plant Research International.
|
 |
Predicting when a plant will flower based on its genes
At least 100 genes are involved in making a plant flower. Based on the activity of those genes, it should be possible to predict when a plant will flower – that is the thinking behind systems biological research being carried out into the regulation of flowering at Plant Research International.
|
 |
Molecular signature predicts plant properties
Modern measuring techniques generate a huge mountain of data about plants. But how do you know which are relevant for a particular property? Researchers from Plant Research International order the data, remove the errors and link them with a specific property of the plant. |