Spider mites can suppress the natural defense system of plants by control industrial plant genes with proteins in their saliva . This enables them to reproduce more chop-chop . During her PhD , investigator Joséphine Blaazer unraveled the underlying mechanism , which declare oneself perspectives for a new form of pestilence control , according to the Institute for Agricultural , Fisheries , and Food Research ( ILVO ) .
Through mutations , breeders could make the vulnerable works genes inaccessible to the mites . This is good intelligence for growers of tomatoes , cucumber , and strawberries rise in greenhouses because spider jot can do great damage to them .
Spider mites on tomato plant . © Floriankittemann | Dreamstime.com
Spider mite expectoration break plant life firewallPlants have a natural defense system against pests , but through years of pick , this defense system has become less effective . One of the plague that occur both in the field and in greenhouses is the spider mite . Because spider mite are very small and reproduce at light hurrying , it is passing unmanageable to find them in time . Moreover , wanderer mites suppress the natural defense system of plant , making them even more susceptible . How just this works was enquire by Joséphine Blaazer during her doctorial cogitation with Professor Merijn Kant of the University of Amsterdam and under the oversight of Wannes Dermauw of ILVO .
Specifically , she look into the function of the spit protein SHOT2b in spider jot . SHOT2b rick out to have a exceptional fundamental interaction with an important works protein , MLK4 . This plant protein is of import for plant growth and unfolding , but also regularise the production of toxins against mites . SHOT2b in turn keep down the production of some of those toxins .
You would think that wanderer mites would seek out plants without MLK4 , as they have no toxin to bedevil into the fray . queerly enough , Joséphine Blaazer discovered that the mites actually lay fewer eggs on plants without MLK4 . She investigated why this was the pillow slip and discovered that the mite ’s saliva protein can belike hijack the MLK4 protein and reprogram it so that the works is weaken and the jot can procreate well .
security system against hackersSo ca n’t we just switch off MLK4 in plants ? No , the plant need the gene to grow and bloom properly . But the results of the research do offer up potential difference for making plants more live in a unlike way : through point mutations in the MLK4 plant gene , the interaction with the SHOT2b wanderer mite protein could be break . The MLK4 gene would still be there , but the spider mite protein SHOT2b would no longer be able to make out it and so would not be able-bodied to flip off the industrial plant ’s defense for become strong itself .
" This route is very interesting for strengthening the natural defending team organisation of plant , but further research is for sure needed before this can be applied in practice . In wheat , there is already a success story where plants were made more resistive to mold by adapting a susceptibleness gene ( also cry S - cistron ) " order supervisor Wannes Dermauw ( ILVO ) . " As far as spider mite infestation in Flanders are concerned , we should mainly focus on making love apple , cucumber and strawberries more resistant . These are mainly grown in greenhouses , which provide an ideal microclimate for wanderer hint . "
Source : ILVO
