Pattern-Recognition Receptors: New Defenses Against Plant Diseases
Monday, March 15, 2010 - 11:36
in Biology & Nature
An international team of scientists has transferred broad spectrum resistance against some important plant diseases across different plant families. The findings provide a new biotechnological solution to engineering disease resistance and may help increase improve food security as a result. The results appear in Nature Biotechnology. Breeding programs for resistance generally rely on single resistance genes that recognize molecules specific to particular strain of pathogens. Hence this kind of resistance rarely confers broad-spectrum resistance and is often rapidly overcome by the pathogen evolving to avoid recognition by the plant. read more