Long before there were life hacks, there was folk wisdom. One classic kitchen tip was to put a ripe apple in a paper bag with a green banana to speed the bananas ripening. Chemically, ethylene gas released by the ripe apple caused the banana to become yellow and delicious. A similar chemical reaction causes one bad apple to spoil the whole bunch, because a single piece of ripe fruit speeds up the ripening and subsequent rotting of its neighbors.

However, until now, the exact genetic mechanism behind this kitchen chemistry had been a mystery.

What If the Planet Turns on Us?

Recent research discovered that etylene gas acts as a hormone to activate a particular gene in plants DNA, known as Ethylene Insensitive3 (EIN3). Ethylenes effect on that gene then ripples out and causes a multitude of other chemical reactions in fruits and many other plants. The study was published online in eLife.

I have been trying, for several decades, to understand how a simple gastwo carbons and four hydrogenscan cause such profound changes in a plant, said study co-author Joseph R. Ecker of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in a press release. Now we can see that by altering the expression of one protein, ethylene produces cascading waves of gene activation that profoundly alters the biology of the plant.

Now that we know the genes that ethylene ultimately activates, we will be able to identify the key genes and proteins involved in each of these branch pathways, and this might help us manipulate the discrete functions this hormone regulates, said Ecker.

DNA Map Leads to Abundant, Tasty Chocolate

Manipulating ethylenes effects on EIN3 could allow:

Breeding or engineering plants that slow down growth at specific times

Accelerating or slowing fruit ripening

See the rest here:
Genetics of Barrel-Spoiling Bad Apples

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