10 ms·

One Lost Methyl Group = Huge Amounts of Food Production

24 points by Clewza313 5y ago

kian 5y ago
Given that plants growing at a faster rate due to increased CO2 seems to decrease their mineral density, I wonder if there is a similar effect here. There is no mention of micronutrient content in the original paper.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  This isn't something to ignore, but rice and potatoes (the target crops for these edits) are grown as staple calorie sources, not really for their vitamin / mineral content. It would be cool to combine this with golden rice and get truly nutritious cereal grains, but the main goal is to reduce hunger, and get micronutrients to populations in more efficient ways.
- jessaustin 5y ago
  Neither the rice nor the potatoes showed changes in their starch, protein, total carbohydrate, or vitamin C content. "Mineral density" and "micronutrients" are not the primary criteria by which we judge the quality of staple crops. There is no particular reason to suspect that your reasoning by analogy from CO2 to demethylation enzymes is valid.
tsjq 5y ago
same topic, a few days ago: " RNA demethylation increases rice and potato yields 50% " https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27925250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27925250 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-021-00982-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-021-00982-9
iamnotwhoiam 5y ago
I wonder if this can be used for non food plants as well. Can we implant it in trees to grow them much more quickly?
- colechristensen 5y ago
  Related: "Wood Formation in Trees Is Increased by Manipulating PXY-Regulated Cell Division" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25866390/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25866390/
  - iamnotwhoiam 5y ago
    That's a different pathway, right? I'm imagining someday we use both in bamboo and have massive forests that we continuously cutdown and use for construction and the leftover gets turned into biochar and either used to make more soil or to fill up mines with sequestered carbon.
    - colechristensen 5y ago
      Oh, yes. Related only in that it is messing with genetics to get more production.
toiletaccount 5y ago
Let's see the results reproduced.

24 points by Clewza313 5y ago

kian 5y ago

Given that plants growing at a faster rate due to increased CO2 seems to decrease their mineral density, I wonder if there is a similar effect here. There is no mention of micronutrient content in the original paper.

bpodgursky 5y ago
This isn't something to ignore, but rice and potatoes (the target crops for these edits) are grown as staple calorie sources, not really for their vitamin / mineral content. It would be cool to combine this with golden rice and get truly nutritious cereal grains, but the main goal is to reduce hunger, and get micronutrients to populations in more efficient ways.
jessaustin 5y ago
Neither the rice nor the potatoes showed changes in their starch, protein, total carbohydrate, or vitamin C content. "Mineral density" and "micronutrients" are not the primary criteria by which we judge the quality of staple crops. There is no particular reason to suspect that your reasoning by analogy from CO2 to demethylation enzymes is valid.

tsjq 5y ago

same topic, a few days ago: " RNA demethylation increases rice and potato yields 50% " https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27925250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27925250 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-021-00982-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-021-00982-9

iamnotwhoiam 5y ago

I wonder if this can be used for non food plants as well. Can we implant it in trees to grow them much more quickly?

colechristensen 5y ago
Related: "Wood Formation in Trees Is Increased by Manipulating PXY-Regulated Cell Division" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25866390/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25866390/
- iamnotwhoiam 5y ago
  That's a different pathway, right? I'm imagining someday we use both in bamboo and have massive forests that we continuously cutdown and use for construction and the leftover gets turned into biochar and either used to make more soil or to fill up mines with sequestered carbon.
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    Oh, yes. Related only in that it is messing with genetics to get more production.

toiletaccount 5y ago

Let's see the results reproduced.