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Russian scientists revive plants frozen for
30,000 years
Tuesday February 21, 2012 11:26:23 AM,
RIA
Novosti
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Moscow: A
team of Russian biophysicists has successfully grown ancient
plants from tissue material that stayed frozen in the Siberian
region for about 30,000 years.
This is the oldest plant material to have been brought to life so
far.
The team from the Institute of Cell Biophysics, led by David
Gilichinsky, studied squirrel hibernation burrows in the banks of
the Kolyma river and found the remains of the Silene stenophylla
family that remained almost intact over millennia.
According to a report published in Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, the scientists extracted the so-called
"placental tissue" from immature seeds and put it in a special
nutrient solution, which imitated a growing plant.
After a while, the tissue in petri dishes germinated into mature
seeds, which have been planted in soil and grew into
fully-blossoming plants.
The scientists found only subtle differences in the shape of
petals and the sex of flowers between the "resurrected" plants and
the modern-day Silene stenophylla, which still grows in the
Siberian tundra.
The research team suggested that tissue cells were a perfect
material for their experiments because they contain high amounts
of sugar, which helped the plants to survive in a hibernated state
for so long.
The success of the scientists may open a door to a whole new area
of experiments in reviving extinct plants buried under layers of
soil, especially in the Arctic zone, for thousands of years.
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