Author: Jeremy Rehm / Source: Science News
Chloroplasts may seem like docile farmers of light. But inside these microscopic plant and algal cell structures lurks the spirit of a warrior.
When a pathogen attacks a plant, chloroplasts stop making food from sunlight and rush to the site of infection to help fend off the invader. Now, researchers have identified the protein that mobilizes these organelles into a defensive army.
Plant pathologist Tolga Bozkurt of Imperial College London and colleagues infected a tobacco relative (Nicotiana benthamiana) with the Irish potato famine pathogen (Phytophthora infestans), a funguslike microbe. The team suspected that a protein called chloroplast unusual positioning 1, or CHUP1,…
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