A remarkable fungus has managed to survive in the extremely salty waters of the Dead Sea. The discovery of this fungus could lead to advances in genetic technology, aimed at creating crops that can be grown in saline soils.
The fungus Eurotium herbariorum can withstand salt concentrations of “intensely salty” levels found in the Dead Sea—up to 340 grams per liter of water—about ten times higher than in other seas. Most organisms on Earth are less tolerant to salt and would dehydrate and die if exposed to excessive salt.
Researchers are particularly interested in developing salt-tolerant crops because saline soils are rapidly increasing worldwide, leading to decreased food production.
When soil becomes too salty, water is drawn out of plants, causing them to die. One solution to this problem is the production of glycerol, a substance that prevents water from escaping plant cells. Consequently, researchers at the University of Haifa in Israel isolated a gene named EhHOG (which regulates glycerol production) from this fungus and inserted it into the yeast strain Saccharomyces cerevisiae used in brewing.
The result was that the genetically modified yeast exhibited better salt tolerance than normal yeast, and it could also endure higher or lower temperatures. The research team stated that if the EhHOG gene could be introduced into plants, it might enhance their salt tolerance.
However, Tim Flowers, a plant physiologist at the University of Sussex in the UK, noted that fungi are fundamentally different from crops, and therefore, there is no reason to believe that the EhHOG gene would be beneficial to plants in the same way it is to fungi, meaning it would help them withstand salt.
