The glowing greenhouse of our dreams is still so very far away, but it just got a tantalising nudge closer.
我們夢想中閃閃發(fā)光的溫室距離我們?nèi)匀缓苓b遠(yuǎn)，但現(xiàn)在有了點(diǎn)吸引人的進(jìn)展了。

Scientists have genetically engineered a plant with not just a visible glow, but a self-sustaining glow that lasts for the duration of the plant's life cycle.
科學(xué)家不僅是使用一點(diǎn)可見光對植物進(jìn)行基因改造，而是讓植物一生都能靠自己持續(xù)發(fā)光。

It's a breathtaking improvement on previous glowing plants. It's brighter than previous genetically engineered tobacco plants, and it doesn't need to be fed with chemicals to maintain luminescence. Also, the duration of the glow is much longer than glowing plants produced using plant nanobionics.
這是在之前發(fā)光植物基礎(chǔ)上的驚人進(jìn)步，比之前進(jìn)行基因改造的煙草要更亮，也不需要添加化學(xué)物質(zhì)來維持發(fā)光。發(fā)光時(shí)間也比采用植物納米仿生學(xué)的發(fā)光植物更長。

Of course, we all immediately think of a breathtaking Avatar-style night garden, glittering and gleaming in the darkness, and - further into the future - reducing our dependence on electric lighting.
當(dāng)然，我們都立刻想到了令人驚嘆的阿凡達(dá)式夜間花園，能在黑暗中閃閃發(fā)光，未來還能減少我們對電氣照明的依賴。

But glowing greenery could also help us understand the plants themselves - how their metabolism works, and how they respond to the world around them.
但發(fā)光的綠色植物也能幫助我們了解植物本身，它們是如何新陳代謝的，以及它們對周圍環(huán)境的反應(yīng)。

The team worked on two species of tobacco plant. And, unlike previous genetically engineered glowing plants, which used bioluminescent bacteria or firefly DNA, these plants were engineered using the DNA of bioluminescent fungi.
這個(gè)團(tuán)隊(duì)研究了兩種煙草。此前經(jīng)過基因改造的發(fā)光植物利用的是生物發(fā)光細(xì)菌或螢火蟲的DNA，但這些植物不一樣，是利用生物發(fā)光真菌的DNA改造的。

"Although bacterial bioluminescence genes can be targeted to plastids to engineer autoluminescence, it is technically cumbersome and fails to produce sufficient light," the researchers wrote in their paper.
研究人員在論文中寫道：“雖然生物發(fā)光細(xì)菌基因可以針對質(zhì)體設(shè)計(jì)自發(fā)光，但技術(shù)很復(fù)雜，發(fā)的光也不夠?！?/div>

"The caffeic acid cycle, which is a metabolic pathway responsible for luminescence in fungi, was recently characterised. We report light emission in Nicotiana tabacum and Nicotiana benthamiana plants without the addition of any exogenous substrate by engineering fungal bioluminescence genes into the plant nuclear genome."
“真菌發(fā)光的代謝途徑最近被確定為咖啡酸循環(huán)，我們通過將真菌生物發(fā)光基因?qū)胫参锖嘶蚪M就使煙草和本氏煙發(fā)光了，無需添加任何外源底物。”

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翻譯：菲菲