Novel effector biology research provides insights into devastating citrus greening disease
2021-01-21
(Press-News.org) Citrus greening disease, also known as Huanglongbing (HLB), is devastating to the citrus industry, causing unprecedented amounts of damage worldwide. There is no known cure. Since the disease's introduction to the United States in the early 2000s, research efforts have increased exponentially. However, there is still a lack of information about the molecular mechanism behind the disease.
"Getting into the molecular details behind what contributes to citrus greening symptom development and disease progression is key to finding sustainable solutions to combat the pathogen," explained plant pathologist Wenbo Ma. "We bring the community one step closer to understanding these mechanisms with our research."
Ma and her colleagues at the University of California and the University of Florida used molecular plant pathology approaches to dissect the mechanisms of the ongoing tug-of-war between the citrus host and the bacterial pathogen that causes citrus greening disease.
"To understand how the bacterial pathogen causes citrus greening disease, we studied the function of effectors produced by the pathogen that can directly affect citrus," Ma explained. "We demonstrated that one of the effectors promotes bacterial colonization and disease development in citrus. Our studies indicate that this likely occurs by the pathogen's manipulation of host senescence (process of aging). "
Host senescence has been shown to be manipulated by other pathogens, but this is the first indication that it plays a role in citrus greening disease progression. They hope this knowledge will help agricultural systems enhance resistance to this disease and stimulate research on the molecular plant pathology aspect of citrus greening disease.
INFORMATION:
For more information about this study, read "Sec-Delivered Effector 1 (SDE1) of 'Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus' Promotes Citrus Huanglongbing" published in the December issue of MPMI.
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-01-21
Understanding the genetic and environmental factors that enable some feral honey bee colonies to tolerate pathogens and survive the winter in the absence of beekeeping management may help lead to breeding stocks that would enhance survival of managed colonies, according to a study led by researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.
Feralization occurs when previously domesticated organisms escape to the wild and establish populations in the absence of human influence, explained lead researcher Chauncy Hinshaw, doctoral candidate in plant pathology and environmental microbiology.
"In the case of honey bees, colonies that escape domestication and establish in the wild provide an opportunity to study how environmental and genetic factors ...
2021-01-21
Muscle structure and body size predict the athletic performance of Olympic athletes, such as sprinters. The same, it appears, is true of wild seabirds that can commute hundreds of kilometres a day to find food, according to a recent paper by scientists from McGill and Colgate universities published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
The researchers studied a colony of small gulls, known as black-legged kittiwakes, that breed and nest in an abandoned radar tower on Middleton Island, Alaska. They attached GPS-accelerometers--Fitbit for birds -- ...
2021-01-21
Warming ocean waters could reduce the ability of fish, especially large ones, to extract the oxygen they need from their environment. Animals require oxygen to generate energy for movement, growth and reproduction. In a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, an international team of researchers from McGill, Montana and Radboud universities describe their newly developed model to determine how water temperature, oxygen availability, body size and activity affect metabolic demand for oxygen in fish.
The model is based on physicochemical principles that look at oxygen consumption and diffusion at the gill surface in relation to water temperature and body size. Predictions were compared against actual measurements from over 200 fish species where oxygen ...
2021-01-21
A McGill-led research team has identified a new species of praying mantis thanks to imprints of its fossilized wings. It lived in Labrador, in the Canadian Subarctic around 100 million years ago, during the time of the dinosaurs, in the Late Cretaceous period. The researchers believe that the fossils of the new genus and species, Labradormantis guilbaulti, helps to establish evolutionary relationships between previously known species and advances the scientific understanding of the evolution of the most 'primitive' modern praying mantises. The unusual find, described in a recently published study in Systematic ...
2021-01-21
A recent McGill study published in Environmental Science and Technology finds that annual methane emissions from abandoned oil and gas (AOG) wells in Canada and the US have been greatly underestimated - by as much as 150% in Canada, and by 20% in the US. Indeed, the research suggests that methane gas emissions from AOG wells are currently the 10th and 11th largest sources of anthropogenic methane emission in the US and Canada, respectively. Since methane gas is a more important contributor to global warming than carbon dioxide, especially over the short term, the researchers believe that it is essential to gain a clearer understanding of methane ...
2021-01-21
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Jan. 20, 2021 - Breast cancer is the second most common cancer among women in the United States, and cigarette smoking is associated with a higher incidence of breast cancer spread, or metastasis, lowering the survival rate by 33% at diagnosis.
While cigarette smoking's link to cancer is well-known, the role of nicotine, a non-carcinogenic chemical found in tobacco, in breast-to-lung metastasis is an area where more research is needed.
Now, scientists at Wake Forest School of Medicine have found that nicotine promotes the spread of breast cancer cells into the lungs.
The study ...
2021-01-21
No evidence so far indicates that food or drinks can transmit the virus that causes COVID-19, but new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that people with problems in the upper gastrointestinal (GI) tract may be vulnerable to infection after swallowing the virus.
Studying tissue from patients with a common disorder called Barrett's esophagus, the researchers found that although cells in a healthy esophagus cannot bind to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, esophageal cells from patients with Barrett's have receptors for the virus, and those cells can bind to and become infected by the virus that causes COVID-19.
The study is published online Jan. 20 in the journal Gastroenterology.
"There ...
2021-01-21
20 January 2021/Kiel. Numerous natural products are awaiting discovery in all kinds of natural habitats. Especially microorganisms such as bacteria or fungi are able to produce diverse natural products with high biomedical application potential in particular as antibiotics and anticancer agents. This includes the so-called red yeast of the species Rhodotorula mucilaginosa, isolated from a deep-sea sediment sample from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and analyzed for its genome and chemical constituents by researchers from GEOMAR Centre for Marine Biotechnology (GEOMAR-Biotech) ...
2021-01-21
In a paper published in NANO, researchers from Hubei, China discuss the top-down and bottom-up strategies for the synthesis of Graphene quantum dots (GQDs). The respective advantages and disadvantages of these methods are summarized. With regard to some important or novel ones, the mechanisms are proposed for reference. In addition, the application of GQDs in biosensors is highlighted in detail.
At present, various top-down methods, such as oxidative cutting, hydrothermal or solvothermal reactions, electrochemical oxidation, ultrasonic-assisted or microwave-assisted process, chemical vapor deposition (CVD) have been reported to produce GQDs. Meanwhile, the bottom-up methods have been ...
2021-01-21
Changes in climate that occur over short periods of time influence biodiversity. For a realistic assessment of these effects, it is necessary to also consider previous temperature trends going far back into Earth's history. Researchers from the University of Bayreuth and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg show this in a paper for Nature Ecology and Evolution. According to the paper, future climate-related species extinction could be less severe than predictions based only on the current trend of global warming. However, the researchers do not give the all-clear. At present, the effects of climate change are being exacerbated ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Novel effector biology research provides insights into devastating citrus greening disease
