They propose using viruses to improve agricultural crops

Humans and animals can benefit from vaccines and virus-based gene therapies, but agricultural crops cannot. This is the paradox denounced by an international research group led by the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology of Plants (IBMCP), a joint center of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), in Spain, in a study published in the academic journal Nature Reviews Bioengineering.

The work proposes a roadmap for applying attenuated viruses to improve the qualities of crops, making them more resistant to extreme and changing climate conditions, or producing dietary supplements to improve human nutrition. According to the authors of the study, it is a more efficient and sustainable alternative to the use of agrochemicals, and faster than the use of traditional improvement methods.

The study is part of the series on the future of food where two of the leading magazines in the sector, Nature Reviews Bioengineering and Nature Food, present the most striking advances in food production and establish a roadmap for future developments that allow achieve food security at a global level and promote environmental sustainability.

“Our study presents points of view that invite reflection and confront readers with paradoxical situations,” reveals Fabio Pasin, CSIC researcher at the IBMCP and main author of the work.

The authors of the study propose that viral vectors, based on attenuated viruses that do not harm plants, can be used to introduce specific genes into agricultural crops, thus achieving improvements in their agronomic characteristics. These viral vectors could be used to induce plant flowering and accelerate harvests; develop improved crop varieties; modify the architecture of the plants to facilitate their adaptation to mechanization; improve drought tolerance; or produce metabolites beneficial to human health, among other applications.

“These vectors can be used for precise genome editing using approaches that rely on CRISPR-Cas components to achieve heritable improvements in agronomic traits, such as grain length and weight in wheat or fruit color in tomatoes,” explains Pasin. “In addition, applications based on viral vectors allow for temporary improvements that offer an attractive alternative, due to their speed of development and validation, to the use of agrochemicals for more efficient and sustainable agricultural production systems,” says the CSIC researcher.

Fabio Pasin. (Photo: Polytechnic University of Valencia)

Despite these advantages, the authors of the study point out several paradoxes: it is considered safe to administer recombinant viruses for human vaccination (against COVID-19, for example) and veterinary vaccination, but there is no registered agricultural use. Humans and domestic animals can benefit from gene therapies based on recombinant viruses, but not agricultural crops. And recombinant viruses can be released into the environment for the immunization of wild animals such as foxes, raccoons or coyotes, thus allowing the control of rabies in Europe and the United States, but their agricultural use is not yet authorized, not even in environments highly confined…

Researchers from IBMCP, the KU Leuven Plant Institute (Belgium), the University of Florida (USA) and Kyung Hee University (South Korea), expose the main difficulties for the application of viral vectors in plants, such as implementation of measures to prevent its uncontrolled dispersion in the environment, in addition to its regulatory approval and public acceptance. This process would be expedited with the use of recombinant viruses that implement methods to ensure their biocontainment and with the prioritization of crops used for the production of animal feed, the obtaining of materials such as textile fibers and biofuels, or for ornamental use, they maintain.

In plants, viral vector technology is in an advanced research phase and its effectiveness has been demonstrated under experimental conditions. At the IBMCP, they optimize technological platforms that accelerate the development and validation of agricultural applications based on viral vectors, implementing synthetic biology approaches compatible with future industrial-scale production. In addition, they explore the use of viral vectors to improve the agronomic characteristics of crops such as tomatoes.

“Our goal has been to train a new generation of leaders in cardiology and personalized medicine, equipped to develop effective and personalized solutions for each patient,” says Dr. María Guillem of the Institute of Information and Communication Technologies.

Finally, Guillem highlights that the results obtained in the project “represent a significant advance in the search for more effective and personalized treatments, improving the quality of life of millions of patients affected by this disease.”

The study published in Nature Reviews Bioengineering is titled “Engineering good viruses to improve crop performance.” (Source: Polytechnic University of Valencia)