Legume plants know their friends from their enemies, and now we know how they do it at the molecular level. Plants recognize beneficial microbes and keep harmful ones out, which is important for healthy plants production and global food security. Scientists have now discovered how legumes use small, well-defined motifs in receptor proteins to read molecular signals produced by both pathogenic and symbiotic microbes. These remarkable findings have enabled the researchers to reprogram immune receptors into symbiotic receptors, which is the first milestone for engineering symbiotic nitrogen-fixing symbiosis into cereal crops.
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Source: Phys.org