Potential new way for plants to fend off pests - starvation
March 30th, 2011 - 5:53 pm ICT by ANIWashington, March 30 (ANI): A potential new way for plants to fend off pests is starvation, revealed a study at Michigan State University.
Gregg Howe, biochemistry and molecular biology professor, cites that this defense mechanism is just one example of a veritable evolutionary arms race between plants and herbivores.
Howe offers insights to understanding the chemical weaponry of this war, which could lead to new approaches to protect crops.
All plants produce the enzyme threonine deaminase, or TD1. Howe’s research focused on potato and tomato plants, which also have the ability to produce a closely related enzyme TD2 when attacked by caterpillars. Rather than repel caterpillars, however, TD2’s devastating effects come later - in the pests’ stomachs. TD2 goes to work in the gut of caterpillars to degrade threonine, a key nutrient they need to grow. In essence, the plant actively starves the caterpillar.
The battle sees plants continually developing chemical defenses to fend off their herbivore adversaries’ ever-adapting arsenal, said Howe, who co-authored the paper with Eliana Gonzales-Vigil, visiting research associate in MSU’s horticulture department.
“The arms-race paradigm is quite important for explaining plant chemical diversity and interactions between plants and herbivores in general,” he said.
What the young research has revealed already, however, is that the ability of TD2 to break down threonine is activated only after it enters the insect’s gut in the form of a chewed up leaf. The capacity of TD2 as a defense against pests was bolstered when the research team identified the enzyme’s x-ray crystal structure. Seeing that it had a more stable structure and is more resilient than TD1 or other TDs, suggests that the enzyme is a key that could lead to new forms of pesticides, Howe said.
“This confirms a role for gene duplication in the evolution of plant defenses that target the digestive process of insects,” he said.
“It represents a novel approach to protecting plants against pests,” he added.
The study has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (ANI)
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Tags: biochemistry and molecular biology, biology professor, caterpillars, chemical defenses, chemical diversity, chemical weaponry, crystal structure, defense mechanism, digestive process, gene duplication, herbivores, horticulture department, michigan state university, plant defenses, stable structure, stomachs, td1, td2, tomato plants, x ray