Researchers discover how plants play defense

A Shanghai research team has discovered the mechanism through which plants respond to threats from pathogens, which could pave the way for creating plant resistance to pathogen-caused diseases while maintaining a high crop yield, scientists said.

According to the paper, which was published on the website of US-based journal Cell on Monday, scientists found that when the plant detects the presence of a pathogen, certain proteins near the cell wall will respond and the cell's nucleus will initiate an appropriate defense by adjusting which genes are activated.

The team was made up of Chinese and foreign scientists at the Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology, part of the Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences Affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.