Pests are still able to attack cabbage in spite of their toxic compounds, due to gut bacteria that produce enzymes which degrade the toxic compound into harmless pieces.
The cabbage fly is a small animal with a big impact. Its larvae infest the roots of cabbage plants, and their family members like rapeseed. Up to fifty percent of yield loss has been reported. With two to three generations a year, cabbage fly is a pest to fear. It was an enigma how these animals can withstand the enormous amount of toxins cabbage plants produce.
A complete ecosystem
‘As microbiologists we wondered if the gut bacteria had something to do with it,' says Cornelia Welte from Radboud University in the Netherlands. 'In a metagenomics analysis we found a gene coding for an enzyme that performed a special trick: it degrades isothiocyanates, cabbage toxins, into harmless pieces. We isolated the enzyme and put it in a test-tube with isothiocyanates - and they disappear...'
Ecosystem services
‘We knew that gut bacteria have a beneficial role for their hosts like cellulose cracking, fighting pathogens, or making nutrients available, but this is only the second example of detoxification ever to be found in an insect. The coffee berry borer beetle has a bacterium that breaks down caffeine.
We believe this finding can help to take a new angle on pesticides. 'If we find something to block the enzyme, cabbage fly might not survive the cabbage toxins any more,' said Welte.
Source: ru.nl