Protein that fights plant bacteria identified

Hyderabad: A team from the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) has identified a new plant‐bacterial interaction which renders the plant to be resistant to bacterial infection.

The bacterium Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae, causes a bacterial blight infection in rice. This infection is fatal for rice crops, and farmers could lose up to 60% of their crops owing to this disease.

Dr Ramesh V Sonti, along with senior scientist Dr Hitendra K Patel and research scholar Sohini Deb, studied the interplay of the interactions of these effector molecules and their role in the rice plant.

They found that a bacterial effector, named XopQ, suppresses rice immune responses by interacting with certain members of a class of proteins in the rice plant cells, known as the 14‐3‐3 proteins. In an interesting experiment, they altered the sequence of the effector protein at one particular position.

Consequently, they found that this mutant form of the bacterial effector protein, is now unable to suppress the plant immune responses. Instead, it makes the plant resistant to bacterial infection, by interaction with another different 14‐3‐3 protein.

Understanding the molecular players in plant immune response pathway offers new ways of blocking the bacterial hijack as well as strengthening the defence responses of the plant cells. Findings of the study have been published in the journal of 'Molecular Plant Pathology,' a publication of the British Society for Plant Pathology.