Researchers have uncovered how certain bacterial pathogens that infect plants make them sterile and capable only of spreading disease.
Phytoplasma pathogens are transmitted by sap-feeding insects that turn flowers (such as Arabidopsis thaliana, pictured top) into leaf-like structures (bottom) that do not produce seeds. Saskia Hogenhout at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, UK, and her colleagues studied Arabidopsis plants and found that a phytoplasma protein, SAP54, interacts with a class of plant proteins called RAD23 to degrade molecules that regulate floral development.
This interaction also seems to boost the attractiveness of infected plants to leafhopper insects, which spread phytoplasma from one plant to another.
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How bacteria turn plants into zombies. Nature 508, 152 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/508152c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/508152c
