Researchers at the UJI are involved in obtaining a new “vaccine” for plants without side effects



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## Researchers at the UJI are involved in obtaining a new “vaccine” for plants without side effects

30/04/2014 |
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A research team led from the United Kingdom in which researchers at the Universitat Jaume I in Castelló are involved, has discovered the receiver of a substance that stimulates defences of an herbaceous plant, although in high doses it also reduces its growth. The study of the mechanisms involved has managed to create mutant copies that only benefit from the protective aspects of this compound.

“Plants have a mainly innate immune system, because they have the same defences from birth, although the stimuli they receive, such as chemical compounds addiction, can mould it”. This has been pointed out to the Information and Scientific News Service [(SINC)](http://www.agenciasinc.es/) by Ana López and Estrella Luna, the Spanish researchers at the University of Sheffield (United Kingdom), the last one graduated with a degree in Technical Agricultural Engineering at the Universitat Jaume I.

These researchers have been involved in a study coordinated by Jurriaan Ton, at the same centre wherein the researcher Víctor Flors, from the Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the Universitat Jaume I, also collaborates. The study shows some of the complex mechanisms that lie beneath plant protection. Details are published in the journal *Nature Chemical Biology*.

More specifically, the work focused on seeing how a protein of the herbaceous Arabidopiss thaliana acts when providing β-aminobutyric acid (BABA), a substance that stimulates its immune system, but in high doses reduces its growth.

This protein is called IBI1 and works as a BABA receiver, although it also works as a transfer RNA inductor (ARNt), which, at the same time, limits plant development throughout several intermediate processes.

**Two different routes**

“The finding of this receiver allowed us to discover that its two effects are controlled by different spotting routes”, explain the researchers. It leaves the way open for new strategies in order to split their benefits (increasing plant defences) from their disadvantages (reducing its growth).

To reach these findings, the researchers modified genetically some examples of Arabidopsis for them to be low in IBI1 protein. So, still with the presence of BABA, the mutant ones were not resistant to pathogens.

Luna and López explain that administering high quantities of BABA overexcite plants’ immune system, so it generates cellular stress and obstructs its growth. The RNAt drives a spotting route of this stress mediated by another protein, the GCN2 kinase.

Researchers have checked that plants mutated without this protein activate their defences and do not reduce their growth; these are precisely the two aimed features.

“In this article, we prove that BABA perception by tomato plants is similar to the mechanism that we describe in Arabidopsis, and that is why the results achieved are directly applicable”, conclude the authors.

Bibliographical reference: Estrella Luna, Marieke van Hulten, Yuhua Zhang, Oliver Berkowitz, Ana López, Pierre Pétriacq, Matthew Asellwood, Beining Chen, Mike Burrell, Allison van de Meene, Corné M J Pieterse, Victor Flors & Jurriaan Ton. “Plant perception of b-aminobutyric acid is mediated by an aspartyl-tRNA synthetase”. *Nature Chemical Biology*.

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