Mosses, liverworts, ferns and algae may offer an exciting new research frontier in the global challenge of protecting crops from the threat of disease. These non-flowering plants are often regarded as unsophisticated compared to their flowering relatives. New research has found that bryophytes and mosses in particular have sophisticated immune receptors.

“The non-vascular and non-flowering bryophytes are often thought of as simple predecessors of flowering plants, but we find that mosses in particular have an expanded set of immune receptors that are perhaps the most complex amongst plants,” said Dr Phil Carella, a group leader at the John Innes Centre and author of the study. 

Using biotechnological techniques, researchers have revealed that nucleotide-binding and leucine-rich repeat (NLR) immune receptor domains which protect plants against pathogens are transferable between flowering and non-flowering plants.

This breakthrough in understanding offers a route to practical applications for crop protection and a source of new resistance genes against pathogens.

• Read ‘Not so simple: mosses and ferns offer new hope for crop protection’

Different types of barley recruit distinct communities of microbes to grow around their roots by releasing a custom mix of sugars and other compounds into the soil.

Professor Jacob Malone, group leader, said: “Groups of microbes help some varieties to grow but not others, suggesting that breeding cereals to recruit beneficial, growth-promoting microbes may be possible in the future.”

Beneficial microbes that live on or around plant roots can provide nutrition, help the plant withstand stress, and protect it from pathogenic microbes. In return, the plant secretes a portion of the sugars it makes through photosynthesis, along with amino acids and other metabolites, into the surrounding environment.

• Read ‘Barley plants fine-tune their root microbial communities through sugary secretions’

A method of controlling crop diseases using beneficial soil bacteria has emerged from a research-industry collaboration.

Researchers have shown that small molecules called cyclic lipopeptides, produced by certain strains of Pseudomonas bacteria, are important in the control of potato scab, a bacterial disease that causes losses to potato harvests.

Postdoctoral Researcher and first author of the study, Dr Alba Pacheco-Moreno, said: “By identifying mechanisms of potato pathogen suppression our study will accelerate the development of biological control agents to reduce the use of chemical treatments.” Cyclic lipopeptides have an antibacterial effect on potato scab, and help protective Pseudomonas move around plant roots.

• Read ‘Smart soil bugs offer farmers an ecofriendly route to controlling crop diseases’

An international research collaboration has shed light on the molecular basis of gene expression, the fundamental biological process that underpins how organisms use genetic information.

While much is known about ‘translation’, how a ribosome decodes mRNAs, a key outstanding question was how ribosomes find mRNA to begin with. Using an advanced microscopy technique, the research team captured the moment genetic information is translated into proteins, revealing a pathway on the surface of the ribosome that the mRNA takes to reach the decoding position.

Dr Michael Webster, group leader and first author of the study, intends to build on this new understanding to examine photosynthetic protein production in chloroplasts. This study included experts in: cryo-EM at the John Innes Centre and the IGBMC (Strasbourg); single-molecule kinetic analysis at the University of Michigan; and structural proteomics at the Technische Universitat (Berlin).

• Read ‘Delivery mechanism discovery resolves gene expression puzzle’

Innovative research has uncovered the secret of how plants make limonoids, a family of valuable organic chemicals which include bee-friendly insecticides and have potential as anti-cancer drugs.

“By finding the enzymes required to make limonoids, we have opened the door to an alternate production source of these valuable chemicals,” explained Dr Hannah Hodgson, co-first author of the paper and a postdoctoral scientist. “Their structures are too complicated to efficiently make by chemical synthesis. With the knowledge of the biosynthetic pathway, it is now possible to use a host organism to produce these compounds,” she added.

The research team, a collaboration between the John Innes Centre and Stanford University, used ground-breaking methods to reveal the biosynthetic pathway of these molecules. Until now limonoids, a type of triterpene, could only be produced by extraction from plant material.

• Read ‘Secret recipe for limonoids opens doors for bee-friendly crop protection’