Cryptochrome:
A dose of radio waves seems to encourage plant seedlings to grow slightly faster, a find that, if confirmed, could have applications from farming to medicine.
Margaret Ahmad at Sorbonne University in Paris, France, and her colleagues exposed thale cress seedlings (Arabidopsis thaliana) to weak pulses of radio frequency (RF) radiation at 7 megahertz, a frequency normally used by amateur radio operators.
The team found that this altered the activity of a type of light sensor in the plants called a cryptochrome. The expression of several genes regulated by the cryptochrome also changed, and the seedlings grew slightly faster.
This is the first time anyone has found a biological receptor sensitive to radio waves, says Ahmad. “What we showed is that we can manipulate the ‘chemistry’ of the cryptochrome receptor in living plants by a remote radio frequency signal.”
Cryptochromes are proteins found across biology in insects, birds and mammals, including humans. They have a wide range of functions, from regulating plant growth rates and biological clocks to helping birds navigate. They are thought to sense weak magnetic fields in many species, through a quantum mechanism in which the field alters the rate at which the protein is activated by light.
From “Plant protein responds to radio waves by making seedlings grow faster,” Jo Marchant, NewScientist (22 August 2020, paywall).
