中国科学院遗传与发育生物学研究所许操团队的研究发现工程作物花形态有利于异花授粉和快速育种的自动化。相关论文于2025年8月11日发表在《细胞》杂志上。
研究小组通过将基因组编辑与基于人工智能的机器人（GEAIR）相结合，开发了一种番茄作物-机器人协同设计策略。课题组研究人员培育出雄性不育系，花上有外露的柱头，然后训练一个移动机器人自动识别这些柱头并进行异花授粉。GEAIR能够实现自动化F1杂交育种，其效率与人工授粉相当，并在快速育种条件下与重新驯化相结合，促进了抗压力和美味西红柿的快速育种。大豆的多重基因编辑重现了雄性不育、外露柱头表型，有可能开启机器化杂交育种。该课题组研究人员展示了GEAIR在提高效率和降低成本方面的潜力，通过自动化，更快地培育适应气候变化的作物。
研究人员表示，人工智能（AI）和机器人为转向精准农业提供了巨大的机会，可以提高作物产量、降低成本并促进可持续发展。然而，许多作物性状阻碍了人工智能机器人的应用。一个瓶颈是花的形态与凹柱头，这阻碍了去雄和授粉在杂交育种。
附：英文原文
Title: Engineering crop flower morphology facilitates robotization of cross-pollination and speed breeding
Author: Yue Xie, Tinghao Zhang, Minghao Yang, Hongchang Lyu, Yupan Zou, Yangchang Sun, Jun Xiao, Wenzhao Lian, Jianhua Tao, Hua Han, Cao Xu
Issue&Volume: 2025-08-11
Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) and robots offer vast opportunities in shifting toward precision agriculture to enhance crop yields, reduce costs, and promote sustainable practices. However, many crop traits obstruct the application of AI-based robots. One bottleneck is flower morphology with recessed stigmas, which hinders emasculation and pollination during hybrid breeding. We developed a crop-robot co-design strategy in tomatoes by combining genome editing with artificial-intelligence-based robots (GEAIR). We generated male-sterile lines bearing flowers with exserted stigmas, and then trained a mobile robot to automatically recognize and cross-pollinate those stigmas. GEAIR enables automated F1 hybrid breeding with efficiency comparable to manual pollination and facilitates the rapid breeding of stress-resilient and flavorful tomatoes when combined with de novo domestication under speed-breeding conditions. Multiplex gene editing in soybean recapitulated the male-sterile, exserted-stigma phenotype, potentially unlocking robotized hybrid breeding. We demonstrate the potential of GEAIR in boosting efficiency and lowering costs through automated, faster breeding of climate-resilient crops.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2025.07.028
Source: https://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(25)00840-2