Researchers say the breakthrough will help design more resilient crops
Scientists have discovered how a small protein in plants that acts like a molecular form of velcro helps stick to other target proteins, creating new connections that enable plants to respond better to environmental stresses like drought, salt and pathogens.
Researchers from the University of Nottingham’s School of Biosciences co-led the study in collaboration with the Universities of Durham, Liverpool and Cambridge. In a world first, the UK team has analysed the entire molecular machinery that adds and takes away the SUMO velcro strip.
The results have been published this week in the journal Science Advances.
The team were able to detect where all 32 parts of the SUMO machinery are located by tagging each with a fluorescent tag, then studying which change after exposure to an environmental stress.
The new study shows that different parts of the SUMO machinery are regulated by distinct environmental stresses. The knowledge will help researchers to design more resilient crops for future climate conditions, they said.
Jason Banda, research fellow at the University of Nottingham and lead author, said: “Understanding how plants rapidly respond to stress using SUMO will be of great importance to provide breeders novel targets for improving crop resilience in the face of climate change.”
