Advertisement
Science
ChinaScience

China builds world’s first custom plant immunity system for epidemic response

Tailored biological tools could enable crops to quickly develop immunity against emerging viruses, bacteria and fungi, researchers say

3-MIN READ3-MIN
Listen
Chinese researchers say their programmable synthetic immune receptors can be introduced into plants to help them detect proteins made by specific bacteria, viruses and fungi, triggering an immune response. Photo: Xinhua
Victoria Bela
Chinese scientists have created an AI-guided platform to engineer custom plant immune receptors to rapidly combat emerging diseases that threaten plants, including commercial crops vulnerable to devastating outbreaks.

Their programmable synthetic immune receptors can be introduced into plants to help them detect proteins made by specific bacteria, viruses and fungi, triggering an immune response to neutralise the threat, according to the team.

By leveraging protein design guided by artificial intelligence (AI), custom receptors could be engineered within weeks rather than years, fast-tracking the breeding of disease-resistant crops and enabling a quicker response to emerging plant diseases, the researchers said.
01:27
Chinese shopping centre hosts indoor rice-planting activity

“This work establishes a versatile platform for efficient plant immunity engineering,” the team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology and biotechnology company Qi Biodesign said in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Science last month.

Around the world, essential crops are threatened by plant pathogens that can devastate agricultural yields and compromise global food security.

Select Voice
Select Speed
1x
AI-generated voice