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A teen researcher tweaked three genes that limit rice’s ability to withstand dry or salty conditions
Rice makes up a major portion of many people’s diets. But climate change is making it harder to grow this grain. At the Regeneron ISEF competition, Nandini Rastogi showed that using the gene-editing tool CRISPR could make rice better able to withstand harsh growing conditions.
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LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Rice is a global dietary staple. Almost half the world eats it regularly — sometimes every day. But climate change has been making it harder to grow that grain. So Nandini Rastogi, 18, has just showed one way to make the plant more resilient to climate stress: She altered its DNA.
A rising senior, Nandini is homeschooled in Monroe Township, N.J. She showcased her work last month, here, at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). This competition is a program of the Society for Science (which also publishes this magazine).
Stress — including extreme hot and dry climates — trigger certain biological processes in rice plants. These turn on physical changes in the plant that help it survive. In a drought, for instance, a plant may elongate its roots in search of more water. It might also close the tiny holes in its leaves to hold onto what water it does have.
Most of the time, those growth-promoting processes are turned off. Nandini decided to get rid of the genes that stopped these from turning on. That left the growth processes active, even when the plant wasn’t stressed. The teen tweaked rice cells using a gene-editing tool called CRISPR. It works like a molecular scissors.
Nandini started by growing almost 600 rice seedlings at a local lab for grade-school students. It’s called Yard Sciences.
The teen grew the plants in a mix of water and nutrients until they were 5 centimeters (about 2 inches) tall. Then she transferred some of the seedlings to a new mixture. It contained acids that would definitely trigger the plants’ stress response. Other seedlings received one of two chemicals to simulate a drought (polyethylene glycol or mannitol). Both dehydrate plants. Another rice group received salty water. Still another was grown at an extreme temperature — a chilly 4º Celsius (39º Fahrenheit). Nandini grew one last group of seedlings without any of these stressors.
Nandini looked at whether certain genes were active. She began this at the start of the trial and looked again 12 hours, 24 hours and 48 hours later. Genes regulate when certain processes turn on in cells. Those, in turn, lead to a lot of changes in plants. These include ones that can make them better able to withstand tough growing conditions.
Three genes became highly active in all experimental groups except the cold-stress condition. “This could be because extreme cold and extreme hot could actually have their own separate pathways,” Nandini says.
The teen then used CRISPR to cut out these three gatekeeping genes. “Because of strict government regulations,” she says, “I’m not actually allowed to perform gene edits on live plants.” So she instead edited the genes of cells that she had removed from the rice plants.
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Nandini worked with around 450,000 plant cells. She viewed the cells with a special microscope. This let her confirm that the CRISPR “scissors” had gotten inside treated ones.
Every CRISPR scissors contained a protein. It glowed green when viewed through the microscope. The cells’ chloroplasts — which convert sunlight into plant food — appeared red. The two colors overlapped in the microscope images. This showed that the CRISPR tool had gone where it was supposed to.
Then to see if it had snipped out the target genes, Nandini looked for signs of what should happen if the gatekeeping genes were not there: for a certain pathway to start up. That pathway would activate certain proteins or change other parts of the cells. “These components are the ones that actually then go and make the rice more stress tolerant,” Nandini explains.
And some of these downstream components did, indeed, become active.
“That tells us that if we were to perform the edits on the live plant, there would be an increase in stress tolerance,” Nandini says. Hopefully, this would allow the rice to grow better under tough conditions. She walks through the specific details of her work in a video at this site.
The teen is now seeking approval to experiment on living rice plants. In the future, she hopes to expand her work to other important crops, such as corn. She’d also like to test more stress factors and biological pathways.
Nandini was among nearly 2,000 high school finalists, this year, who competed from almost 70 countries, regions and territories. Regeneron ISEF, which doled out more than $9 million in prizes at the event, has been run by Society for Science since it created the annual event in 1950.
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activate: (in biology) To turn on, as with a gene or chemical reaction.
annual: Adjective for something that happens every year. (in botany) A plant that lives only one year, so it usually has a showy flower and produces many seeds.
cell: (in biology) The smallest structural and functional unit of an organism. Typically too small to see with the unaided eye, it consists of a watery fluid surrounded by a membrane or wall.
chemical: A substance formed from two or more atoms that unite (bond) in a fixed proportion and structure. For example, water is a chemical made when two hydrogen atoms bond to one oxygen atom. Its chemical formula is H2O. Chemical also can be an adjective to describe properties of materials that are the result of various reactions between different compounds.
chloroplast: A tiny structure in the cells of green algae and green plants that contain chlorophyll and creates glucose through photosynthesis.
climate: The weather conditions that typically exist in one area, in general, or over a long period.
climate change: Long-term, significant change in the climate of Earth. It can happen naturally or in response to human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests.
component: Something that is part of something else (such as pieces that go on an electronic circuit board or ingredients that go into a cookie recipe).
CRISPR: An abbreviation — pronounced crisper — for the term “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.” These are pieces of RNA, an information-carrying molecule. They can guide an enzyme, called Cas9, to cut through genetic material like a scissors. In this way, they can edit — or alter — specific genes so that they can then study how those genes works, repair damage to broken genes, insert new genes or disable harmful ones.
crop: (in agriculture) A type of plant grown intentionally grown and nurtured by farmers, such as corn, coffee or tomatoes. Or the term could apply to the part of the plant harvested and sold by farmers.
dehydrate: To lose a large amount of water.
DNA: (short for deoxyribonucleic acid) A long, double-stranded and spiral-shaped molecule inside most living cells that carries genetic instructions. It is built on a backbone of phosphorus, oxygen, and carbon atoms. In all living things, from plants and animals to microbes, these instructions tell cells which molecules to make.
downstream: Further on in the direction in which a stream is flowing or the path at which stream water will flow in its trek to towards the oceans.
drought: An extended period of abnormally low rainfall; a shortage of water resulting from this.
engineering: The field of research that uses math and science to solve practical problems. Someone who works in this field is known as an engineer.
factor: Something that plays a role in a particular condition or event; a contributor.
fertilizer: Nitrogen, phosphorus and other plant nutrients added to soil, water or foliage to boost crop growth or to replenish nutrients that were lost earlier as they were used by plant roots or leaves.
gene: (adj. genetic) A segment of DNA that codes, or holds instructions, for a cell’s production of a protein. Offspring inherit genes from their parents. Genes influence how an organism looks and behaves.
high school: A designation for grades nine through 12 in the U.S. system of compulsory public education. High-school graduates may apply to colleges for further, advanced education.
microscope: An instrument used to view objects, like bacteria, or the single cells of plants or animals, that are too small to be visible to the unaided eye.
physical: (adj.) A term for things that exist in the real world, as opposed to in memories or the imagination. It can also refer to properties of materials that are due to their size and non-chemical interactions (such as when one block slams with force into another). (in biology and medicine) The term can refer to the body, as in a physical exam or physical activity.
polyethylene: A plastic made from chemicals that have been refined (produced from) crude oil and/or natural gas. The most common plastic in the world, it is flexible and tough. It also can resist radiation.
protein: A compound made from one or more long chains of amino acids. Proteins are an essential part of all living organisms. They form the basis of living cells, muscle and tissues; they also do the work inside of cells. Antibodies, hemoglobin and enzymes are all examples of proteins. Medicines frequently work by latching onto proteins.
Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair: (Regeneron ISEF) Initially launched in 1950, this competition is one of three created (and still run) by the Society for Science. Each year now, approximately 2,000 high school students from up to 70 countries, regions, and territories are awarded the opportunity to showcase their independent research at Regeneron ISEF and to compete for an average some $9 million in prizes.
regulate: (n. regulation) To control with actions. Governments write rules and regulations — laws — that are enforced by police and the courts.
resilient: (n. resilience) To be able to recover fairly quickly from obstacles or difficult conditions. (in materials) The ability of something to spring back or recover to its original shape after bending or otherwise contorting the material.
seedling: The initial plant that sprouts leaves and roots after emerging from a seed.
Society for Science: A nonprofit organization created in 1921 and based in Washington, D.C. Since its founding, the Society has been promoting not only public engagement in scientific research but also the public understanding of science. It created and continues to run three renowned science competitions: the Regeneron Science Talent Search (begun in 1942), the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (initially launched in 1950) and the middle-school MASTERS competition (from 2010 to 2022) that morphed into the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge (and launched in 2023). The Society also publishes award-winning journalism: in Science News (launched in 1922) and Science News Explores (created in 2003).
staple: (in nutrition) A food that serves as a dominant source of calories for a community or species. In people, for instance, just three plants — rice, corn (maize) and wheat — account for roughly 60 percent of calories eaten (according to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization). That makes these staples. But the amounts can vary by community.
stress: (in biology) A factor — such as unusual temperatures, movements, moisture or pollution — that affects the health of a species or ecosystem.
stressor: Something that induces stress in an individual or system.
Report: N. Rastogi. Decoding climate resilience: Functional profiling of protein phosphatase 2C family genes for abiotic stress tolerance in rice. Plant Sciences project #067. Regeneron International Science & Engineering Fair. May 2024, Los Angeles, Calif.
McKenzie Prillaman is the Spring 2023 science writing intern at Science News. She holds a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience with a minor in bioethics from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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