Plants, bacteria use TIR receptor to boost immune response - study
The study also elaborates that the new information may help strengthen the defenses of plants in order to prevent billions of dollars in crop losses.
The Weizmann Institute of Science is seen in Rehovot, Israel.
(photo credit: WEIZMANN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE)
Bacteria and immune mechanisms in plants reportedly use the TIR
(Toll/interleukin-1 receptor) to sustain themselves, according to a new
study from the Weizmann Institute of Science.
The study, published in the Nature journal on Wednesday, confirms that both bacteria,
as well as immune mechanism origins in plants, use TIR and that it
achieves immunity in plants and bacteria in similar ways using signal
molecules. Its immune response keeps viruses and bacteria from spreading
when the plant is infected.
Led
by Prof. Rotem Sorek of Weizmann’s Molecular Genetics Department, the
study also elaborates that the new information may help people
strengthen the defenses of plants in order to prevent billions of
dollars in crop losses throughout the planet, and may be useful for
researchers trying to find new ways to enhance plants' immune systems
and bolster their ability to resist infections.
American
and Australian scientists already discovered two years ago that a
plant’s immune system kills infected cells using TIR.
Bacteria fight against phages, a type of virus. Dr. Gal Ofir, Sorek's colleague who also led the study at Weizmann,
found that the TIR can sense the phages' invasion of a bacterium and
generates a signal that alerts a second protein, which destroys the
molecule that is critical to bacterial metabolism. Therefore, the
bacterium dies before the phage multiplies.
Rotem Sorek and Gal Ofir. (credit: Courtesy)
“Our
findings have established a direct evolutionary link between the
immunity of plants and that of bacteria,” Sorek says. “Moreover, they
provide a basis for investigating how a major defense system, one
involving TIR, works in plants.”
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