Aspirations for high crop growth and yield, nutritional quality and bioproduction of materials are challenged by climate change and limited adoption of new technologies. Here, we review recent advances in approaches to profile and model gene regulatory activity over developmental and response time in specific cells, which have revealed the basis of variation in plant phenotypes: both redeployment of key regulators to new contexts and their repurposing to control different slates of genes. New synthetic biology tools allow tunable, spatiotemporal regulation of transgenes, while recent gene-editing technologies enable manipulation of the regulation of native genes. Ultimately, understanding how gene circuitry is wired to control form and function across varied plant species, combined with advanced technology to rewire that circuitry, will unlock solutions to our greatest challenges in agriculture, energy and the environment.

对作物高生长、高产量、营养质量和材料生物生产的渴望受到气候变化和新技术采用有限的挑战。在这里，我们回顾了在特定细胞的发育和响应时间内分析和建模基因调控活动的方法的最新进展，这些进展揭示了植物表型变异的基础：将关键调控因子重新部署到新环境以及重新利用它们来控制不同的状态基因。新的合成生物学工具可以对转基因进行可调谐的时空调控，而最近的基因编辑技术可以操纵天然基因的调控。最终，了解基因电路如何连接以控制不同植物物种的形态和功能，并结合先进技术来重新连接该电路，将为我们在农业、能源和环境方面面临的最大挑战提供解决方案。