These findings will help scientists design better strategies to combat agriculturally important microbial diseases with fewer repercussions to crop yield. | Photo: iStock

Scientists in the University of Kentucky (UK) College of Agriculture, Food and Environment recently found that a cellular protein involved in plant growth is also important for signaling defense against disease-causing microbes. This finding is important for scientists as they continue to better understand the trade-offs between pathogen defense and growth in plants.

“Traditionally, growth and defense have been studied separately, not just due to the complex nature of these physiologies, but also because many of the regulating components were considered exclusive to one or the other pathway,” said UK plant pathology researcher Pradeep Kachroo, MS, PhD. “Our research ties these processes and the RNA silencing pathway together and shows that they regulate each other.”

Kachroo; Aardra Kachroo, MS, PhD, also a plant pathology researcher at UK; and collaborators from Washington and France, found that the COP1 protein, a well-known repressor of photomorphogenesis (growth and development in response to light), also regulates pathogen defense. In the dark, COP1 helps recycle key proteins that stimulate light-dependent growth, thus helping conserve energy