A simple plant system for bioengineering

Plant systems are characterised by complex genetic and cellular networks that are locked together by dynamic, parallel and non-linear feedback interactions that give rise to self-organised growth, repair and propagation. These evolved systems pose formidable barriers to traditional engineering approaches. Yet, the challenge is compelling. Plants are self-assembling bioreactors fed off sun and solutes. Plant reprogramming offers new prospects for low-cost and large-scale production of engineered molecules.

The non-vascular plant Marchantia polymorpha has morphological simplicity, simple underlying genome structure and ease of culture, transformation and analysis. These properties make it an ideal system for experiments with plant development and synthetic biology.

Resources for research

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Jim Haseloff's lab at the University of Cambridge and description of synthetic biology research using Marchantia polymorpha.

Information and tools about working with Marchantia plants - from hydroponics to DNA transformation and imaging.

Brings together modern electronic tools and tutorials that enable novice programmers (like biologists) to build instrumentation with sophisticated user interfaces.

Haseloff Lab

OpenPlant

OpenMTA

Fostering the creation of open standards and open-access tools for global innovation and development of an equitable and sustainable bioeconomy.

Marchantia

A materials transfer agreement for open distribution of biological parts, with wide acceptance from research institutions and implementation by distributors like Addgene.

Biomaker

News

Updated genome sequences for Cam-1/2 isolates

Revised genome sequences for the Cambridge isolates of Marchantia polymorpha, based on alignments with the Tak-1 ver. 7 reference sequence.

Publications

Recent research publications from the Haseloff Lab at the University of Cambridge