Genetically engineered thornless roses pave the way for better crops

Crop plants such as blackberries and eggplants (along with some varieties of tomatoes, potatoes and rice) sport herbivore-deterring thorns. This makes the harvesting of their fruit laborious and time-consuming.

With that problem in mind, scientists from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and the Universitat Polit?cnica de Val?ncia (UPV) in Spain started out by analyzing eggplants. Led by Cold Spring's Prof. Zachary Lippman and postdoc James Satterlee, the team discovered that certain mutations of a gene known as LOG (LOnely Guy) kept the plants from producing prickles.

After reviewing previous studies and conducting new research, it was found that LOG was associated with prickle growth in approximately 20 species. It was apparently a case of convergent evolution, as the plants weren't all closely related to one another, and some of them evolved millions of years apart from others.

Utilizing the CRISPR gene-editing technique to silence the LOG gene, a scientist from INRAE (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique) in France proceeded to drastically reduce prickle growth in roses. Researchers at Cornell University, meanwhile, eradicated prickles in an Australian fruit plant known as the desert raisin. What's more, silencing of the gene didn't appear to have any detrimental effects on the plants.

Image source: Mohammed Bendahmane/INRAE, CNRS, Université de Lyon, France.