Photo/Illutration Male flowers of Japanese cedar filled with pollen (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Researchers pinpointed the gene that deprives Japanese cedar trees of their ability to produce pollen, carving out the future where no one may suffer the agony brought about by hay fever.

Scientist from Niigata University, the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute and elsewhere have presented the achievement at a conference of the Japanese Society of Breeding.

According to their findings, a single base sequence constituting the gene determines whether pollen is released. If a method known as genome editing is used to modify the target gene, cedar trees free from pollen could be bred efficiently.

“Only one of all the cedar’s more than 10 billion bases has turned out to be a deciding factor behind the presence of pollen,” said Hiroyuki Kakui, a specially appointed assistant professor of thremmatology at the university. “Use of genome editing can remove pollen from cedar that is useful as construction material.”

About 70 percent of patients with hay fever--a common type of allergy in Japan--are said to develop the condition because of cedar pollen.

The species was introduced in large numbers to procure building wood. As hundreds of thousands of pollens are believed to be made by one male flower, many people are plagued as a result of the mass planting.

One in every 5,000 cedar trees undergoes a genetic mutation so as not to produce pollen.

The team of researchers thus compared the DNA of more than one cedar. The results showed the gene called TKPR1 works aggressively in male flowers and one of the gene’s 1,002 bases decides whether pollen can be generated or not.

Applying the normal TKPR1 gene from cedar into a pollen-free thale cress in a test resulted in the production of pollen, while the base’s control rendered it impossible to release pollen, according to the researchers.

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