Stealthy diseases sometimes trick plants by hijacking their defense signaling system, which issues an alarm that diverts plant resources for the wrong attack and allows the enemy pathogens to easily overrun plants.
A team of international scientists led by Michigan State University, however, is helping plants counter these attacks by boosting plants’ alert system. New research in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that the team has engineered the receptor for jasmonate, a plant hormone that plays a central role in plant defense, to fend off such stealthy attacks from highly evolved pathogens.
“This is the first example of using receptor engineering to fix a disease-vulnerable component of the plant immune system that is frequently hijacked by highly evolved pathogens to cause disease,” said Sheng Yang He, an MSU Distinguished Professor in the MSU-Department of Energy Plant Research Laboratory. “This new strategy is different from conventional resistance gene-based crop breeding and is based on a deep understanding of a key component, the jasmonate receptor, of the plant immune system.”