Some crop--and even human--diseases might be stopped dead in their tracks if researchers can harness a new discovery about how pathogens first infect their hosts.
Like a burglar with a universal lock pick, many deadly pathogens use the same protein to gain access to the cells of a potential host, researchers have discovered. The new findings could have implications for blocking infections by agents ranging from wheat rust to malaria.
Pathogenic fungi, such as flax rust and soybean rust, and similar pathogens known as oomycetes, such as the organism behind the Irish potato famine and sudden oak death, make similar proteins to disarm their hosts' defenses. But to work, these effector proteins need to first make their way inside of a cell. And until now, scientists did not know, in the first place, how these compounds were able to break in.
A new study, published online July 22 in Cell describes how these blights do it.
Read the full article in Scientific American
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