New insights in attack mechanism Potato Blight open the door to biological protection
By Isabell Albert
A team of international researchers
headed by scientists from the University of Tübingen has deciphered the
workings of a cytolytic toxin, which is produced by some of the world’s most
devastating crop diseases.
The Cytolysin is manufactured by pathogens such as bacteria and fungi and can
wipe out entire harvests if chemical protection is not used.
The study - by researchers from Tübingen and their partner institutions in
Berkeley, Bordeaux, Ljubljana, Liége, and Wako in Japan, as well as Göttingen
in Germany - may lead to ways of better protecting crops from such pathogens in
the future.
The study has been published in the latest edition of Science.
The Great Famine in Ireland claimed around one million lives and forced more
than a million people to emigrate. It began in 1845 with the failure of potato
crops in that and the following years due to the potato blight, caused by an
oomycete called Phytophthora infestans. It quickly kills the infected plant and
spoils the potato tubers.