FLOE1: Molecular Control of Seed Viability, Longevity, and Germination

Stanford inventors have discovered a single plant protein, FLOE1, that controls a variety of processes that are crucial to timely and robust germination of seeds. They have not only demonstrated this protein's key role in seed biology in Arabidopsis thaliana, but they have also discovered several methods, including regulation and mutation of the gene, that allow scientists to control the timing of seed germination and improve seed longevity.

Seeds can lay dormant until the environmental conditions are right to begin growing into a plant, a process called germination. This process has long been a mystery to scientists as it was not known how seeds sense their environment to trigger germination. By studying the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, scientists at Stanford have discovered a key player responsible for controlling seed germination they termed FLOE1. They determined that FLOE1's unique biochemical structure gives it the ability to sense water and discovered several FLOE1 mutations that can either speed or slow germination depending on the desired result. Simply overexpressing the protein also increases seed viability overall. This protein has homologs throughout the plant kingdom and the researchers also show that, biochemically, these homologs behave similarly to Arabidopsis FLOE1, an exciting prospect for increasing seed viability and streamlining seed germination in crop species.