This award is designed to celebrate exemplary work done in plant synthetic biology.
Canola (Brassica napus) is a financial cornerstone in our national community, contributing over $30 billion to the Canadian and Alberta economies. Furthermore, over 14 thousand Albertan farmers are involved in canola production. We designed our project with this in mind, recognising how canola plays a vital role in the livelihoods of thousands of families and communities across Canada.
With climate change and environmental uncertainty contributing to rising drought rates, canola production and agriculture as a whole are at risk, creating food insecurity and economic instability. With RhizoRetention, we are utilizing synthetic biology tools to confront this challenge by re-imagining plant cycles with seed coatings.
Last year’s winning team (high school): 2024 Rainsaca-China
RhizoRetention utilizes synthetic biology to develop a more drought-tolerant canola crop. Our team envisions engineering this crop using plant-growth-promoting rhizobacteria and RNA interference (RNAi) to silence negative regulators of drought tolerance.
A 2020 study, which used the Arabidopsis thaliana crop, revealed the bHLH61 gene that negatively regulates drought tolerance. We identified the same homologous gene in canola and predict that by knocking down the expression of the bHLH61 gene in canola, we can improve canola’s drought tolerance.
The rhizobacteria, Arthrobacter globiformis, will be engineered to express siRNA that targets the bHLH61 gene and will be incorporated into a seed coating. This way, when the seed is put into the soil, the engineered bacteria will colonize the growing plant’s roots and deliver dsRNA to silence the target gene, improving drought tolerance as a result.
Our project aims to demonstrate how engineered rhizobacteria can be integrated into plant systems to enhance resilience against climate challenges. By targeting specific genes like bHLH61, this approach highlights how plant synthetic biology can provide sustainable solutions for global agriculture and food security.
Our project opens the door to further rhizobacterial integrations, such as biofertilizers with rhizobacteria and further developed microbial interactions that can serve plants in a multitude of ways.