Engineered plant receptors offer a new route to disease resistance

Researchers have engineered plant immune receptors to recognize selected pathogen proteins, opening a possible route to more adaptable disease resistance.

A team led by Gao Caixia at the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed synthetic plant immune receptors and used directed evolution to improve their behaviour. A central challenge was reducing unwanted immune activation while retaining a useful response to the target.

The study, published in Science, demonstrated resistance to tomato brown rugose fruit virus in experimental Nicotiana benthamiana plants. The result is a research demonstration, not evidence that commercial crop varieties already provide the same protection under field conditions.