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Largest Genome Ever

Posted by timothy on from the trojan-marketing-campaign dept.

sciencehabit writes "A rare Japanese flower named Paris japonica sports an astonishing 149 billion base pairs, making it 50 times the size of a human genome — and the largest genome ever found. The genome would be taller than Big Ben if stretched out end to end. The researchers warn however that big genomes tend to be a liability: plants with lots of DNA have more trouble tolerating pollution and extreme climatic extinctions—and they grow more slowly than plants with less DNA, because it takes so long to replicate their genome."

3 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. So lots of things. by jd · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, a large genome generally means lots of redundancy. Lots of redundancy is theorized to mean high resistance to radiation. This plant should, therefore, be highly resistant. That is potentially quite useful knowledge. Back in the days when people looked to hydroponics and Biosphere 2 as a way of getting oxygen into an artificial environment, they forgot to take into consideration that most plantlife won't cope with the radiation on, say, Mars. In order to be able to get a livable environment for humans, you must first create a livable environment for the plants needed. Obvious solution - use rad-resistant plants as part of an initial program for building up the environment.

    Once you've got an artificial environment that is biologically stable and sustaining good O:CO2 ratios for plantlife, you can look to advancing that environment. I'd suggest having a two layer dome, with the gap between the inner dome and outer dome flooded at as high a pressure as the domes can take something that'll filter the radiation. By having an organic system that can cope, you can take your time getting it right. Regardless of what is actually done, these plants will provide a rich topsoil that will be valuable to the plants that are actually needed by humans.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    1. Re:So lots of things. by nbauman · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well, a large genome generally means lots of redundancy. Lots of redundancy is theorized to mean high resistance to radiation.

      Another reason why plants have large genomes is that they tend to duplicate their genomes. One theory is that it makes speciation easier.

      Mind you, it's not as if the designer said, "I'll duplicate plant genomes to make it easier for them to separate into species." They just duplicate and it works out well.

      Apparently plants can double their genomes without the disasterous consequences that it has in animal cells. Animal cells don't double their entire genome unless they're really messed up, like in cancer, and then they're swiftly disposed of.

  2. Probably multiploid by morty_vikka · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not that I have read TFA, but this is probably another plant with multiple copies of each chomosome. In which case it's not really a newsflash; this is the case for many plants. Sugar cane and many other monocots have extremely multiploid genomes.