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    Home > Food News > Food Articles > The new drug vaccine helps plants fight the virus

    The new drug vaccine helps plants fight the virus

    • Last Update: 2021-03-16
    • Source: Internet
    • Author: User
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    for a pumpkin farmer, there's nothing more scary than the letters CMV. They represent the cucumber leaf virus, a pathogen that desolates entire fields where pumpkins, cucumbers and melon crops are grown. Now, researchers have found a way to develop a vaccine that could eventually protect crops from viral pathogens.
    "It's a great discovery. Anna Whitfield, a plant pathologist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh who was not involved in the study, said. Viruses are an evolving threat to global food security, and Whitfield says new technologies can help farmers cope with changing pathogens.
    when a virus infects a plant cell, the former usually releases RNA , which exists in the form of messenger RNA or double-stranded RNA. These RNAs travel through cells to help the virus replicate. When the defense proteins in plant cells recognize the viral RNA, the enzymes cut the latter open like small scissors. The resulting RNA fragments, called small interfering RNA (siRNAs), work together with a group of proteins called the Argonaute complex.
    as a marker, the argonaute complex is directed into the RNA in the viral genome, which is then destroyed by the Argonaute complex and other proteins.
    strategy is sharp, but not always effective. Of the thousands of different siRNAs made from plants, few have the correct chemical properties to fight viral RNA. So Sven-Erik Behrens, a biochemist at Martin Lutheran University in Harlem, Germany, and his colleagues began to simplify the process.
    have developed molecular detection methods to identify which siRNAs are effective against viruses. In laboratory experiments on tobacco plants, scientists showed that they could pick the winners and use them as a vaccine against the tomato bush dwarf virus. The virus slows the growth of tobacco plants and damages the leaves of tobacco plants.
    study, published in the journal Nucleic Acid Research, reported that ideally, siRNA sprayed on leaves could protect 90 percent of plants.
    behrens says there are other ways to predict which siRNAs might work for a plant virus, but most of them are computer models and therefore don't always work as expected.
    Whitfield said the exciting thing about the study was that the team simply sprayed siRNAs on plants or applied them to leaves. This is much simpler and much faster than genetically engineering an antiviral plant, allowing scientists and farmers to keep up with the rapid evolution of viral pathogens.
    researchers are now working to find the most effective and cost-effective way to vaccinate plants, such as using a spray containing nanoparticles to transmit siRNAs. They are also trying to identify SiRNAs that can fight economically significant viruses such as CMV or the small zucchini yellow leaf virus, which can harm plants such as watermelons and tomatoes. (Source: Zhao Xixi, China Science Journal)
    related paper information:
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