Although roses are beautiful to look at, trying to cut them or even holding them if they are cut can have unpleasant consequences because of their thorns.
A research team led by scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York has discovered that the same ancient set of genes is responsible for the thorns on roses and many other types of flowers and plants, which are common to them despite millions of years of different evolution that all these species have followed.
According to the researchers, editing these genes is key to developing new varieties of these species that will not have spines. And editing these genes could lead to a weak future for these species, they said.
The experiments
“Seeing so many people get stung by flower thorns made me wonder what we know about this, and it turns out we know almost nothing,” says James Satterly, a member of the research team that discovered a link between a family of genes called LONELY.FACE (LOG) and plants that have thorns. They found that plants like domesticated thornless eggplants had mutations in these genes.
They then identified 20 different species of plants and flowers, including roses, that possessed these genes. The baton was taken up by an international team of researchers from Cornell University in the US, who began the effort to edit the genome of a species of berry endemic to Australia that has thorns.
But a researcher based in France decided to experiment with the LOG genes in roses and managed to suppress the growth of thorns on them. With Publication In the journal “Science,” the researchers report: “Thorns have evolved many times during plant evolution. Although thorns are strong deterrents to herbivores animals making their cultivation difficult. These results pave the way for the removal of thorns in food and ornamental species, such as roses, through gene editing.”
Experts recommend leaving the thorns on roses to make them last longer in the vase, as removing them can be a time-consuming and painful process and can “hurt” the plant. However, if necessary, they recommend cutting the thorns by hand, as other methods of using knives and removing thorns are harmful to the flower and are “killers of vase life”. Naturally, having thornless roses will solve these problems.
Naftemporiki.gr
