An international team of scientists has succeeded in transferring disease resistance from one plant family to another, according to Reuters, offering wider protection against potentially costly and destructive pests.
A team led by Cyril Zipfel at Sainsbury Laboratory in the UK found that transferring a single gene from a wild plant to disease-susceptible crop plants made them more resistant to infections such as bacterial wilt.
If the results could be duplicated more widely, the researchers wrote in the Nature Biotechnology journal on Sunday, massive crop losses could be avoided, as well as the environmental, health and financial costs associated with pesticide use.
According to Reuters, the team is extending its work to a number of crop plants that suffer from bacterial diseases, including potatoes, apples and bananas.
Sophien Kamoun, head of the Sainsbury Laboratory, commented: 'The implications for engineering crop plants with enhanced resistance to infectious diseases are very promising.'
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