Clue on How Plants Fight Disease

Plants have been found to resist pathogen in a number of ways. However, disease causing pathogens find ways around these strategies to effect infection. University of California Riverside plant pathologist Wenbo Ma and colleagues found that pathogens inject virulence bacterial proteins called HopZ1 which reduce the production of isoflavones in the infected plant cells. The plants on the other hand mount a robust resistance against the pathogen as soon as it senses the HopZ1, to which the pathogen has to respond by different means.

In the paper published in Cell Host & Microbe, Ma and her colleagues introduced the idea that "pathogens evolved strategies to directly attack the production of plant antimicrobial compounds, such as isoflavones, thus compromising the plant's defense mechanism." Other studies would include understanding of how isoflavones function to protect plants so that specific strategies can be designed to better protect the plant.

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