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Revolutionizing agriculture with synthetic biology

Nature Plants volume 5, pages 1207–1210 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Synthetic biology is here to stay and will transform agriculture if given the chance. The huge challenges facing food, fuel and chemical production make it vital to give synthetic biology that chance—notwithstanding the shifts in mindset, training and infrastructure investment this demands. Here, we assess opportunities for agricultural synthetic biology and ways to remove barriers to their realization.

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Fig. 1: Plant evolution has explored very little of the possible metabolic design space.
Fig. 2: Plant evolution is far slower than directed evolution.
Fig. 3: The current status of plant SynBio and its constraints.

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Acknowledgements

This paper was inspired by discussions at the Banbury think-tank meeting, ‘Revolutionizing Agriculture with Synthetic Biology’, held at the Banbury Center, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY, 2–5 December, 2018. We thank the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Banbury Center for hosting the meeting and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Corporate Sponsor Program for funding the meeting. We thank the following meeting presenters for their contributions to the thought-provoking discussions: G. Barbier, D. Bhaya, R. Bock, H. J. Bouwmeester, N. Boyle, M. Cooper, T. J. Erb, S. L. Evans, J. Gershenzon, A. D. Hanson, J. Haseloff, P. J. Hines, A. J. Kinney, S. P. Long, J. L. Matos, J. I. Medford, A. H. Millar, B. L. Møller, T. Muranaka, J. L. Nemhauser, L. Nielsen, P. I. Nikel, D. Orzáez, A. Osbourn, N. J. Patron, P. Rabinowicz, E. S. Sattely, J. Shanklin, C. Vickers and E. T. Wurtzel. Corresponding author A.D.H. acknowledges support from the US National Science Foundation (grant no. MCB-1611711).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Lehman College, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA

    Eleanore T. Wurtzel

  2. Graduate School and University Center-CUNY, New York, NY, USA

    Eleanore T. Wurtzel

  3. CSIRO Synthetic Biology Future Science Platform, Canberra, Australia

    Claudia E. Vickers

  4. Australian Institute for Bioengineering & Nanotechnology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Claudia E. Vickers

  5. Horticultural Sciences Department, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Andrew D. Hanson

  6. ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, School of Molecular Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia

    A. Harvey Millar

  7. Queensland Alliance for Agriculture & Food Innovation, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia

    Mark Cooper & Kai P. Voss-Fels

  8. Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs Lyngby, Denmark

    Pablo I. Nikel

  9. Max-Planck-Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Department of Biochemistry & Synthetic Metabolism, Marburg, Germany

    Tobias J. Erb

  10. LOEWE Center for Synthetic Microbiology, Marburg, Germany

    Tobias J. Erb

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Contributions

A.D.H., E.T.W., and C.E.V. led the writing of the paper, to which A.H.M., P.I.N., T.J.E., M.C. and K.P.V.-F. contributed; in addition, T.J.E. conceived of and composed Fig. 1, and M.C. and K.P.V.-F. performed evolutionary modelling.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Eleanore T. Wurtzel, Claudia E. Vickers or Andrew D. Hanson.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Plants thanks Jenny Mortimer, Neal Stewart and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1

Key to abbreviations in Fig. 1. For pathway descriptions, see refs. 33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44.

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Wurtzel, E.T., Vickers, C.E., Hanson, A.D. et al. Revolutionizing agriculture with synthetic biology. Nat. Plants 5, 1207–1210 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-019-0539-0

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