1,300-year-old seed
may hold secret
of better life

The 'powerful genetics' of the
lotus could hold a 'fountain of youth'

By Helen Altonn
Star-Bulletin

While her husband searches for evidence of life on Mars, Jane Shen-Miller is exploring properties of a plant that could improve life on Earth.

Shen-Miller in 1995 sprouted the oldest seed in the world -- a sacred lotus more than 1,300 years old. The discovery drew attention from those interested in finding a "fountain of youth." But that's not her purpose, she said. "We don't need to prolong our life, but we want a healthier life."

Most other crops have a life of 20 to 100 years, so the Chinese lotus has "powerful genetics" to survive 1,300 years, she pointed out.

Someday, that could be transferred to extend the life of other crops, to prevent famine, and to fight animal and human diseases, she said.

Shen-Miller, a botanist, was here last week with her husband, J. William Schopf, a guest in the University of Hawaii's Distinguished Lecture Series. Both are professors at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Discussing her project in an interview, she said seven seeds from a dry lake bed were given to her in 1984 when the couple was visiting there.

She wasn't a lotus specialist, so she put them in a drawer for 10 years and didn't think about trying to sprout them until Chinese botanists told her they were old seeds, she said.

Strong coat shields the lotus

The lotus seed has a very hard, strong coat, she said. "It is so well architectured that it's impervious to water and impervious to air, so it preserves the little embryo. The seed is in a very, very happy environment that has no oxidation of its lipids or other stuff."

She had to scrape and file the coat for five minutes to get it open so water could get in, she said. She didn't want it to absorb carbon dioxide, so she kept it in the dark and used a green flashlight so it wouldn't photosynthesize much.

"On the fourth day, that little sprout came out, just like modern siblings, and it was green, which was unusual. Seeds normally have a yellow embryo."

Radiation bombarding the soil would cause some DNA damage over more than 1,000 years, she said. "What does a lotus have in its embryo that would be able to repair damage over the years? What makes them able to withstand 1,000 years within the coat, buried in the soil?"

Shen-Miller hopes to learn the repair mechanism, which she said could be useful for genetic engineering.

Walking into history

The only other known seeds to remain viable for 100 years were buried on Michigan State University's campus, and produced three weeds, Shen-Miller said.

And those seeds had a germination rate of only 5 percent, compared with 70 percent for her seven lotus seeds. Radiocarbon dating showed the lotus seeds ranged from 100 to 1,300 years in age.

Shen-Miller and her husband returned to China in 1996 to look for more lotus seeds. To find the lake area, they followed a map a Japanese botanist published in a 1920 paper. "It was just like walking into history," Shen-Miller said.

Earthquakes had drained the sacred-lotus lake into the ocean, and the area had been used for farmland and to get peat for fuel, she said.

Digging down to the lake bed and walking the entire area, the UCLA scientists uncovered only 50 of the old seeds -- "the world supply," she said.

They were told the land was being sold for tourism development, she said. "Of course we don't know where other sources are. This was really a treasure. Now it's gone."

Until the lotus-sprouting, Shen-Miller was doing work for NASA on plant hormones and plant weightlessness. "Now I'm entrapped in this," she said.

She and her husband spent the last 10 months at the Microbiology Institute in Germany, which has facilities for extreme-environment research.

She found the lotus protein is able to survive a temperature of 230 degrees Fahrenheit. "The protein is powerful, robust, and can protect the organism under a harsh environment."

She has collaborators worldwide working on tissue culture, chemistry, hormones, DNA repair, protein, soil radiation and other aspects of the seeds.

She wants more collaborators and said she'd like to have some from Hawaii.

With only 50 old seeds -- she's used three so far -- she "must decide which seed to do what. There are so many things to ask."

China's "barefoot doctors" used every part of the lotus to strengthen the heart, help circulation and cure ailments, she said. "What are the natural products in the lotus that can cure all these things?"

She's also interested in the religious, cultural and historical story of the Chinese lotus.

The lotus was a symbol of purity for Buddhists, she said, "coming from a humble origin in the muck, rising high above the water. Now I add vitality."

Shen-Miller and Schopf returned home Saturday with a little bag of lotus seeds from Chinatown, a gift to her.

"They look pretty nice," she said. "I don't know the origin, but I think they will sprout."