SINGAPORE — A team of scientists in Singapore has discovered the mechanism by which flowers decide to stop growing, a discovery that might prove beneficial in the production of synthetic molecules and even help optimise crop yields for farmers.

Led by Dr Toshiro Ito, Senior Principal Investigator at Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, the team found a bio-timer mechanism that helps synchronise growth and control the growth rate in flowering plants. The findings were published in the journal Science.

Plant floral stem cells divide a limited number of times before they stop, and this is controlled by the bio-timer mechanism. When the mechanism is delayed, the stem cells will continue to divide, leading to flowers with an increased number of organs. If it is activated early, an incomplete flower with fewer organs will form.

The Arabidopsis plant was used as a model plant to study the bio-timer, but as many genes are conserved between animals and plants, it is possible that this bio-timer can also be found in animals. “Basically, the genetic pathway and the logic we found is applicable to all the flowering species,” said Dr Ito. “And the same genetic pathways could be conserved in animals.”

This discovery will potentially allow farmers to save on both manpower and shipping, as naturally maturing crops will not all flower at the same time, leading to the less-than-optimal use of resources. “We can utilise this technique to synchronise the flowering, to maximise the yield or reduce the cost of harvesting, because you can do it all at the same time and potentially reduce wastage,” said Dr Ito.

Beyond that, he is also hoping to utilise what they have discovered about bio-timers in the field of synthetic biology, where compounds or metabolites with therapeutic or economic value are synthesised using cells, as the bio-timer might also provide the fine-tuning ability for the design of cell factories to produce useful and valuable metabolites and compounds.

“We are interested in synthetic biology, (where we) synthesise some compounds or metabolites that are economically important,” said Dr Ito. “In synthetic biology, to maximise the yield, we really have to coordinate the genetic process. So it is useful to turn on and off the right pathways at the right time.”

It took them almost five years to understand how the time lag in flower growth works, and the work goes on for Dr Ito and his team, who are finding out if the mechanism functions the same way in rice plants. On top of that, the team is also working to reveal what happens before and after the bio-timer mechanism is triggered.

And while the discovery of whether the system can also be found in animals might be the ultimate result, Dr Ito has firmly set his eyes on continuing his work on plants.

“I used to do animal research, but when I switched to the plant field, I felt that plants could be a bit easier to understand and, at the same time, we really rely on plants for food, materials, medicines and even bio-energy,” he said. “So plant research is equally important for humans.”