Is this real? Of course. A group of Chinese scientists discovered the way plants can differentiate the beneficial fungi from the harmful to a molecular level. This could mean a very large step in terms of organic food agriculture and world food security, reports the medium ‘China Daily’. Plants detect friends and enemies for their development.
In the root system of plants, various microorganisms live. Symbiotic fungi establish mutually beneficial relationships with plants and help absorb essential soil nutrients. But pathogens exhaust these nutrients. This reduces crop yield and leads to the death of plants, they indicate.
Problem
It was analyzed by the scientists of the Center for Excellence in Molecular Sciences of the Plants of the Academy of Sciences of China. In Shanghai, they began to develop cultivation systems to reduce the dependency of fertilizers harmful to the environment. With this purpose, they identified the kinases of the LYSM receptor in the membranes of the plant cells. It was the key factor in the detection of molecular signals of fungi.
However, the abundance of LYSM receiving kinases in flower plants is a problem. Its overlapping functions hinder the understanding of how plants distinguish precisely between different fungi.
How do plants detect friends and enemies? To address this problem, the researchers turned to the Marchantia Paleacea. It is an early terrestrial plant with a simpler genome with less LYSM receptors. This makes it an ideal model for your study. The scientific work found two LYSM receiving kinases in that plant: Mpalyr and MPa-Cerk1. They function as sensors to distinguish between symbiotic and pathogenic fungi, and activate different responses.
Sending signals
In contexts with low phosphorus content, academics resolved that plants release a hormone. This makes symbiotic fungi expel large amounts of short chain chitin oligomers. These molecules are recognized by Mpalyr. They trigger symbiotic responses while stopping immune responses to long pathogenic fungal chain chitine oligomers.
«This process is as if a teacher passed in a classroom. Only symbiotic fungi respond to the hormone and release symbiotic signals. They are attracted to the plant to help the absorption of water and nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen, ”explained team chief researcher Wang Ertao.
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