Researchers have found a way to endow plants with an antibody-based defense for a specific threat, potentially speeding the creation of crops resistant to any kind of emerging virus, bacterium, or fungus.
COVID-19 has tragically given many people a crash course in the importance of antibodies, pathogen-targeting proteins produced by the sophisticated immune systems of humans and other animals. Now, researchers from a U.K. plant research institute have found a way to endow plants with an antibody-based defense for a specific threat, potentially speeding the creation of crops resistant to any kind of emerging virus, bacterium, or fungus.
Farmers lose many billions of dollars to plant diseases each year, and emerging pathogens pose new threats to food security in the developing world. Plants have evolved their own multipronged immune system, kick-started by cell receptors that recognize general pathogen features, such as a bacterial cell wall, as well as intracellular receptors for molecules secreted by specific pathogens. If a plant cell detects these molecules, it may trigger its own death to save the rest of the plant.
Camelids, which include alpacas, camels, and llamas, are workhorses for antibody design because their immune systems create compact versions, called nanobodies, encoded by small genes. As a proof of principle of the new plant defense strategy, Kamoun’s group turned to two standard camelid nanobodies that recognize not pathogen proteins, but two different fluorescent molecules, including one called green fluorescent protein .
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