Source: NCSU COLLEGE OF AG & LIFE SCIENCES, 6/3/20


Two wrongs don’t make a right, but sometimes two “broken” genetic mutations can “fix” each other.

That’s what a team of NC State researchers discovered when studying an enzyme involved in making a critical plant growth hormone. Enzymes are proteins made by living organisms to speed up chemical reactions.

The enzyme is called ROOTY, because the seedlings have characteristic stumpy and branched roots, said Javier Brumos, a researcher in NC State’s Department of Plant and Microbial Biology.

Brumos and his colleagues shared their discovery in a recent paper published in the journal Plant Physiology. They found a new mutation in ROOTY that “fixed” a well-studied mutation in the same gene. Then they constructed a computational model to see how the two mutations could fix or complement each other, producing a functional enzyme.

“From the scientific point of view, you’re always looking for novelty, to bring something new to the table,” said Brumos, the first author on the paper. “Our goal was to find new genes that are involved in the production of auxin, a plant hormone. When we identified that the mutation was actually in a well-known gene, we got super depressed. Then we got curious, the mutation is in the same gene: How did it complement the known mutant?”

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