Glow in the dark plants developed by MIT engineers

MIT News

Imagine trees on the street side providing light during the dark or a small indoor plant doing the role of a bed lamp during the night time. The recent experiments conducted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers may actually make this concept a reality after they made a watercress plant glow in the dark by injecting specialised particles.

According to a report in MIT's university journal earlier this week, engineers from the institute have successfully embedded specialised nanoparticles into the leaves of a watercress plant, that induced the plants to give off dim light for nearly four hours. They are confident to illuminate plants bright enough to lighten the entire workspace.

Source:  Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), YouTube

“The vision is to make a plant that will function as a desk lamp — a lamp that you don’t have to plug in. The light is ultimately powered by the energy metabolism of the plant itself,” Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and the senior author of the study was quoted saying in the report.

To create the glow, engineers used the aid of an enzyme called luciferase. The enzyme acts on a molecule called luciferin leading to the emission of lights from the leaves. The whole process was aided by the application of another molecule known as co-enzyme A to neutralise the reaction of a byproduct that affects the activity of luciferase.

They embedded the chemicals into the plant by placing the components into different carriers. Later, they placed the particles inside a solution in which the plant was immersed into. This was then exposed to high pressure which in turn allowed the particles to enter in the leaves through tiny pores called stomata.

While there have been earlier instances where genetically engineered plants have been made to glow, it had several drawbacks including a highly complicated process resulting in a low amount of light. Whereas, the new method not only creates more light but also can be employed on many varieties of plants including kale, spinach, and arugula among others.