Plant immunity; more discoveries (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, August 07, 2020, 19:34 (1568 days ago) @ David Turell

This one is in legumes:

https://phys.org/news/2020-08-distinguish-beneficial-microbes.html

"Legume plants know their friends from their enemies, and now we know how they do it at the molecular level. Plants recognize beneficial microbes and keep harmful ones out, which is important for healthy plants production and global food security. Scientists have now discovered how legumes use small, well-defined motifs in receptor proteins to read molecular signals produced by both pathogenic and symbiotic microbes. These remarkable findings have enabled the researchers to reprogram immune receptors into symbiotic receptors, which is the first milestone for engineering symbiotic nitrogen-fixing symbiosis into cereal crops.

"Legume plants fix atmospheric nitrogen with the help of symbiotic bacteria, called Rhizobia, which colonize their roots. Therefore, plants have to be able to precisely recognize their symbiont to avoid infection by pathogenic microbes. To this end, legumes use different LysM receptor proteins located on the outer cell surface of their roots. In the study published in Science, an international team of researchers led by Aarhus University show that pathogenic (chitin) or symbiotic signaling molecules (Nod factors) are recognized by small molecular motifs on the receptors that direct the signaling output towards either antimicrobial defense or symbiosis.

"All land plants have LysM receptors that ensure detection of various microbial signals, but how a plant decides to mount a symbiotic or an immune response towards an incoming microbe is unknown.

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"...the researchers identified previously unknown motifs in the LysM1 domain of chitin and Nod factor receptors as determinants for immunity and symbiosis. "It turns out that there are only very few, but important, residues that separate an immune from a symbiotic receptor and we now identified these and demonstrate for the first time that it is possible to reprogram LysM receptors by changing these residues," says Kasper Røjkjær Andersen.

Comment: I again assume these mechanisms were designed when these plants evolved to protect them for survival. If an attempt is made to survive by chance arrival of protective mechanisms makes no sense. But then again, Darwinism makes no sensed.