Researchers at University of Edinburgh have found a gene they say could hold the key to developing disease resistant crops.
Scientists at the university examined a common cress plant to see how plants behave when under attack from bacteria or viruses.
They found infected plants release tiny amounts of a gas called nitric oxide, which triggers a response from the plants immune system, while a previously unknown gene, SRG1, is also rapidly activated.
The researchers discovered that the SRG1 gene unleashes the plants defence mechanism, and that plants with higher levels of defence proteins produced by the gene were more resistant to infection.
Professor Gary Loake from the universities School of Biological Sciences said: “Our findings provide a missing link between mechanisms that activate and suppress the plant’s response to disease. We were surprised to see this might be common to humans too.”
Loake and others in the team believe that similar mechanisms are likely to exist in other species, meaning their discovery could aid insight into other immune response processes.
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