May 04, 2025 08:00:00

Research into inducing 'suicide' in parasitic plants

The problem of 'parasitic plants' that parasitize other plants and steal their moisture and nutrients is an unavoidable problem for farmers, and in countries suffering from food shortages, it is directly related to the lives of the people. Research is being conducted on methods to induce such parasitic plants to 'suicide' and die.

Evolution of interorganismal strigolactone biosynthesis in seed plants | Science

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adp0779

Triggering parasitic plant 'suicide' to help farmers | UCR News | UC Riverside
https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2025/03/20/triggering-parasitic-plant-suicide-help-farmers

According to Yanran Li of the University of California, Riverside, researchers at the heart of research into how parasitic plants can 'suicide' are based on a hormone called strigolactone, which not only controls the plant's response to stress, such as lack of water, but also has the unusual feature of attracting soil-based fungi that are associated with the plant's roots.

However, many parasitic organisms have evolved to utilize strigolactones, and once a parasitic plant detects their presence, it germinates and attaches itself to the roots of the crop, robbing it of essential nutrients.

Researchers are studying a technique to take advantage of this property by spreading strigolactones in the absence of a host for the parasitic plant, causing the parasitic plant to germinate in a place with no food, only to die from lack of nutrients.

In 2018,

research at Nagoya University succeeded in synthesizing strigolactones that act only on specific parasitic plants, stimulating the germination of the parasitic plants and protecting crops.

In their new study, Li and his colleagues developed an innovative bacteria and yeast system, engineering E. coli and yeast cells to act like tiny chemical factories, replicating the biological steps needed to produce strigolactones. This method could potentially enable researchers to study strigolactones in a controlled environment and synthesize them in large quantities.

'This system allows us to characterize genes that have never been studied before and then manipulate them to see how they affect the strigolactones they synthesize,' said co-author David Nelson. 'By fine-tuning the signal that strigolactones give off, we may be able to more effectively repel parasitic plants.'

Beyond agriculture, strigolactones are also expected to have applications in medicine and the environment: some studies have suggested their use as anti-cancer and anti-viral agents, and they may even be used to control citrus greening disease, which has caused significant damage to citrus crops in Florida.

'We still have questions about whether this strategy will work in the field,' Nelson said. 'We are currently testing whether we can tweak the signal that strigolactones send out to make it more effective. If we can, this could be a game changer for farmers fighting weeds.'