Imperial college News

by Hayley Dunning
A study of how plants identify and react to invading pathogens using mobile disease detectors could help researchers breed disease-resistant crops.

Many important crop plants can be devastated by pathogens including bacteria, fungi and viruses. Knowing exactly how some plants respond could give researchers the information to breed crops with the best disease-fighting power or even design new and improved immune sensors in genetically modified plants.

Understanding exactly how plants sense and eliminate disease-causing agents could allow us to engineer genetic control strategies by improving their immune systems.Dr Cian Duggan

Plant cells contain immune sensors that detect the presence of specific proteins called effectors, which infectious microbes use to facilitate infection. These immune sensors, called NLRs, have previously been found in specific ‘compartments’ within the plant cell, such as the nucleus or membrane.

The new study identified the first-known ‘mobile’ NLR immune receptor that navigates to where the microbe is invading. The research, led by Imperial College London researchers, is published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Lead author Dr Cian Duggan, from the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial, said: “The world’s farmers lose 20-40% of their crops each year to plant pests and diseases, even with chemical control strategies. Understanding exactly how plants sense and eliminate disease-causing agents could allow us to engineer genetic control strategies by improving their immune systems.”

Read on: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/228513/discovery-mobile-disease-detectors-plants-could/