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Plant biotechnology

Bioengineering resistance in plants

Nature Reviews Bioengineering volume 1, page 235 (2023)Cite this article

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Plant diseases and epidemics are a major threat to global food security. To build an immune response against pathogens, plants rely on innate immune receptors instead of an adaptive immune system, such as animals and humans. The immune system of plants can be exogenously adapted by modifying natural components through receptor mutagenesis or domain shuffling, which may not be easy to identify, and requires detailed knowledge of the disease and host-resistance mechanism. Moreover, such methods are expensive and time-consuming, with uncertain durability and adaptability against different pathogens and pests. Now, writing in Science, Sophien Kamoun and team, inspired by animals’ adaptive immune system, bioengineered synthetic immune receptors, named Pikobodies, to confer plant disease resistance.

“Pikobodies can be fused to plants to endow them with a ‘pseudo-adaptive’ immune system’”, explains Jiorgos Kourelis, one of the co-first authors of the paper.

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References

Original article

  • Kourelis, J. et al. NLR immune receptor–nanobody fusions confer plant disease resistance. Science 379, 934–939 (2023)

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  1. Nature Reviews Bioengineering https://www.nature.com/natrevbioeng/

    Sadra Bakhshandeh

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  1. Sadra Bakhshandeh
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Correspondence to Sadra Bakhshandeh.

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Bakhshandeh, S. Bioengineering resistance in plants. Nat Rev Bioeng 1, 235 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44222-023-00062-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44222-023-00062-4

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