The first discovery of plant growth genes by EU researchers

A team of British and French researchers first discovered a "growth gene" that controls the supply of nutrients to corn seeds and named it meg1 The discovery of meg1 is of great significance, indicating that human beings can greatly increase the output of crops and slow down the pressure of food security brought by the expanding population of the earth The results were published in the latest issue of the Journal of modern biology Meg1 is different from most of the genes which are expressed by the maternal and paternal chromosomes, but only from the maternal chromosomes This unique form of gene expression is called imprinting in molecular biology Meg1 was first found in crops, which is an important technological breakthrough In fact, this kind of gene imprinting has been confirmed in human and mammalian genomes, "growth gene" regulates the amount of nutrition provided by the mother to the growth of the fetus by controlling the growth of the placenta The discovery of meg1 has inspired researchers At present, the research team is exploring and testing the "growth genes" of major crops such as wheat and rice, and actively carrying out the mechanism research of using "growth genes" to increase the biomass content of seeds, so as to improve the productivity and yield of major agricultural crops This research is partly funded by the framework of the EU science and Technology Cooperation Program (cost), which is an important support plan for the European Commission to promote close cooperation among Member States, optimize resource allocation and build the EU unified research area (ERA).