Sacred Lotus Genome May Hold Key To The Secrets Of Aging

Image Caption: Nelumbo nucifera from China, more commonly known as the 'sacred lotus'. Credit: Jane Shen-Miller / UCLA

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

A team of international scientists report today that they have sequenced and annotated the genome of the sacred lotus (Nelumbo nucifera), which is thought to have a powerful genetic system. The team, which includes researchers from the US, China, Australia and Japan, have sequenced nearly 90 percent of the plants 27,000 genes.

The sacred lotus, which is a symbol of spiritual purity and longevity, has the ability to repair genetic defects, and may hold a key to the secrets of aging; the seeds of the lotus can survive up to 1,300 years. The petals and leaves of the plant also repel dirt and water and the flower can generate its own heat to attract pollinators.

Through sequencing, the researchers have found that the lotus bears the closest resemblance to the ancestor of all eudicots, than of any other plant that has been successfully sequenced to date. Eudicots are a group of flowering plants that include apple, coffee, peanut, soybean, tobacco, tomato, and countless others.

Publishing the paper in the journal Genome Biology, the team noted that the results of the sequencing offer insight into the heart of many of the plants mysteries.

The research was co-led by Ray Ming, a plant biology professor at University of Illinois Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB); Jane Shen-Miller, a plant biology professor at UCLA; and Shaohua Li, director of the Wuhan Botanical Garden (WBG) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The lotus genome is an ancient one, and we now know its ABCs, said Shen-Miller, who works out of the UCLAs Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life. Molecular biologists can now more easily study how its genes are turned on and off during times of stress and why this plants seeds can live for 1,300 years. This is a step toward learning what anti-aging secrets the sacred lotus plant may offer.

Shen-Miller said the plants genetic repair mechanisms could be very useful if researchers could find a way to transfer them to crops that have seeds that generally only have life spans of a few years. They could even prove significant if transferable to human health.

If our genes could repair disease as well as the lotus genes, we would have healthier aging. We need to learn about its repair mechanisms, and about its biochemical, physiological and molecular properties, but the lotus genome is now open to everybody, she said.

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Sacred Lotus Genome May Hold Key To The Secrets Of Aging