研究人員將野生植物中的一種基因移植到病害風險大的西紅柿和土豆中,，結果增加了這些植物抵抗農(nóng)業(yè)病菌的能力。新成果發(fā)表在3月在線出版的《自然—生物技術》期刊上,，如果這一結果能廣泛地復制,，那么它將在減少作物大量損失的同時，避免殺蟲劑使用所造成的環(huán)境,、健康和成本問題,。
絕大多數(shù)植物都擁有對付微生物病菌侵犯的普通和特別兩種機制。然而,，抵抗特別病菌的能力卻因不同種類的植物而異,。創(chuàng)建作物抗病毒能力的方法之一是讓它們表達出特定的受體，在被某種病害的分子所激發(fā)時能作出防御反應,。但是,，這種抵抗能力卻在大范圍的田野試驗中消失，因為聰明的病菌會突破這道防線,，進入植物體內(nèi),。
Cyril Zipfel和同事將目標集中到一種免疫受體，這是一種來自野生芥菜的模式受體,，會被出現(xiàn)在許多致病菌中的一種因子所激活,。然而，科學家們卻沒有在土豆、西紅柿等植物家族中發(fā)現(xiàn)這種受體,。當Zipfel和同事在西紅柿和相近的煙草植物中表達出這種基因時,，這些植物對來自于四種不同家族的病菌有了更高的抵抗力，這四種病菌分別會導致細菌性萎蔫病,、細菌性斑點,、冠癭病等。因為模式識別受體靶標法是病菌生存的關鍵,，所以新方法讓細菌難以避開植物的抵抗能力,。
未來還需要進一步的田野試驗，以檢驗模式識別受體戰(zhàn)略是否能提供比目前方法高兩倍的植物抵抗力,。(生物谷Bioon.com)
生物谷推薦原文出處：
Nature Biotechnology doi:10.1038/nbt.1613
Interfamily transfer of a plant pattern-recognition receptor confers broad-spectrum bacterial resistance
Séverine Lacombe1,5,6, Alejandra Rougon-Cardoso1,5,6, Emma Sherwood1,5,6, Nemo Peeters2, Douglas Dahlbeck3, H Peter van Esse4, Matthew Smoker1, Ghanasyam Rallapalli1, Bart P H J Thomma4, Brian Staskawicz3, Jonathan D G Jones1 & Cyril Zipfel1
Plant diseases cause massive losses in agriculture. Increasing the natural defenses of plants may reduce the impact of phytopathogens on agricultural productivity. Pattern-recognition receptors (PRRs) detect microbes by recognizing conserved pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs)1, 2, 3. Although the overall importance of PAMP-triggered immunity for plant defense is established2, 3, it has not been used to confer disease resistance in crops. We report that activity of a PRR is retained after its transfer between two plant families. Expression of EFR (ref. 4), a PRR from the cruciferous plant Arabidopsis thaliana, confers responsiveness to bacterial elongation factor Tu in the solanaceous plants Nicotiana benthamiana and tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), making them more resistant to a range of phytopathogenic bacteria from different genera. Our results in controlled laboratory conditions suggest that heterologous expression of PAMP recognition systems could be used to engineer broad-spectrum disease resistance to important bacterial pathogens, potentially enabling more durable and sustainable resistance in the field.
