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Marchatia

Ginny suggested that we should have a page exposing Marchantia and extolling its virtues as a new chassis

yes she did!

Welcome to Mar-Cam-tiamania Land!!

Let us introduce to you to Marchantia Polymorpha (or Polly for short).
On this page you can find general information about our little plant, the reasons we love her and her path to being the new chassis for plant Synthetic Biology (and some trivia at the end).

Who is Marchantia?

Let's leave the botanical jargon and head to the gardens.


Intro to Byrophytes and how to get in the clang

Primitive plants are everywhere and together are called Byrophytes.

Byrophytes are divided into three lineages.
In evolutionary order these are:
• Marchantiaphyta or Liverworts (that's Poly!)
then came
• Mosses (byrophyta)
and finally the newer
• Hornworts or Anthocerotophyta.
then came all the rest.

Nature's strange ways: Role-Reversal Byrophytes and what makes them special

Byrophytes are united by unique features.
These include:

• Sexual Propagation by Spores
• No cumbersome flowers or energy absorbing seeds
• No lignin (what makes plants tough) or vascualture
and last but not least
• a reversed life cycle!
Byrophytes are indeed often referred to as 'Up-Side-Down' or 'Role-Reversal' plants.
Their life cycle is the opposite of most:
We and other organisms spend our life as diploids. (two sets of chromosomes, one from Dad, one from Mother).
We specialize a set of cells in our reproductive organs which undergo meiosis, forming a haploid egg or sperm.
When the sperm and the egg come together, they form a haploid organism which grows. And the cycle starts again
Byrophytes live most of their life as haploids (only have one copy of their genes!). A set of cells differentiate to become the ova and the sperm. When the haploid sperm reaches the haploid ova, they fuse, become diploid for a short time, and then undergo meiosis (split genome) to form two haploid plants!
Intrigued by this oddity? Go to 'Marchantia's Life Cycle' to find out more.

But let's not underestimate them...


Close up on Mar-cam-tiophytes (liverworts)

Primitve does not mean frail; quite the contrary.


Looks, Location and Loveliness

Poly can be found found worldwide from tropical and arctic climates to your backyard! She likes moist soil or rocks in damp habitats. Her favourite hide-outs include banks of pools and rivers, bogs, fens and dune slacks.
You can easily find her in man-made habitats such as gardens, paths and greenhouses. Some even dare calling her a horticultural weed!
After fires, she rapidly colonizes the burnt ground, restoring an eco-stystem___.

The new Mar-vellous Chassis

OpenPlant

Synthetic Biology conferences used to be like vegetable gardens (or zoos), with every researcher working on different organisms: a longer courgette here, a sweeter tomato there. Great to make some tasty dishes but a real halt for science. The animal field concentrated their forces from dogs and cats to Drosophila fly and the C.elegant worm, and the green handed people went for Arabidopsis or Tabacco.
Focusing on these few and simple organisms allowed science, techniques to be shared and developed by a community and core concepts, true for any higher organisms, emanated from this thrust.
Arabidopsis, is a great plant however some of its disadvantages, long life cycle, height, complex development is refraining progress. A wave is now building up as we speak behind Marchantia to develop it as the new tool for Synthetic Biologists and Plant Scientists. _ Watch this space_ (or even better: read on!)

The Beauty of Simplicity: Advantages of Marchy

Why Marchantia as the new plant chassis?
For any system to be adopted and developed and made better it needs to be: simple, accessible and better than any previous system. Marchantia Polymorpha is just this.
• Ancestor to all plants, she illustrates them all.
  Her simple basic genome is more malleable
• Small in size makes for easy mass culture
• Rapid growth and germination reduces drastically the time of experiments (a big down fall of Arabodopsis)

Collaborators and future for iGEM

The Welcome Trust has recently given a huge push to the Marchantia Lovers. And these are sprouting from everywhere
For future iGEM groups who'd like to join this Marchantia Community, here are some of the people who are already in the stream (and would love to here from you!) For advice, plant strains to get started or just some info, contact:
• Us!
• The Haseloff group in Cambridge- (home of the OpenPlant)
• Tokyo
• MIT
• JIC
• UEA??
• Online Community!

Marky Fun Facts & Trivia

world records

References