In the first reported gene transfer from plants to animals, whiteflies likely pilfered a pesticide-blocking gene from plants millions of years ago.
The stolen gene helps explain why whiteflies are so good at chowing down on crops. It allows the sap-sucking insects to detoxify phenolic glycoside — chemicals that some plants produce as a defense mechanism — in their food. When the researchers disabled the gene and let the whiteflies munch on tomato plants, nearly all of the insects died.
Its recent discovery aside, BtPMaT1 has called the insect home for quite some time. The gene was likely transferred between 35 million and 80 million years ago by a virus, says Turlings. Yet the original plant species remains a mystery. But HGT between plants and animals probably happens far more often than we think, says Nicky Wybouw, a molecular evolutionary biologist at Ghent University in Belgium. What’s much rarer is when the gene actually proves useful and becomes integrated into an entire population, as it did in whiteflies.
The gene’s clear advantage likely explains its lingering presence. And future research may soon reveal that plant-insect HGT isn’t actually so rare: Turlings says his co-authors have already found another gene in whiteflies that likely originated in plants. “I do think it’s actually very common,” he adds.
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