Programmable design of synthetic plant immune receptors for pathogen protein recognition | Science
Researchers have developed an approach for constructing artificial immune receptors for plants that can recognize any given pathogen protein: viruses, bacteria, and fungi. The artificial receptor is based on the plant receptor Pikm-1, but the "recognition module" is replaced with a specially designed peptide fragment. This fragment is created using artificial intelligence, AlphaFold, BindCraft, and other tools, to produce a structure that will bind the target pathogen. To obtain more effective receptors, they used the method of directed protein evolution within plant cells (GRAPE-based evolution). The synthetic receptor gene, embedded in a geminivirus-based construct, was introduced into a plant cell. As the construct replicated, thousands of gene copies were produced in a short time, with random mutations occurring within them—creating a huge library of receptor variants directly within the cell. The best variants were then selected, for example, under the influence of a p
... Show more...Programmable design of synthetic plant immune receptors for pathogen protein recognition | Science
Researchers have developed an approach for constructing artificial immune receptors for plants that can recognize any given pathogen protein: viruses, bacteria, and fungi. The artificial receptor is based on the plant receptor Pikm-1, but the "recognition module" is replaced with a specially designed peptide fragment. This fragment is created using artificial intelligence, AlphaFold, BindCraft, and other tools, to produce a structure that will bind the target pathogen. To obtain more effective receptors, they used the method of directed protein evolution within plant cells (GRAPE-based evolution). The synthetic receptor gene, embedded in a geminivirus-based construct, was introduced into a plant cell. As the construct replicated, thousands of gene copies were produced in a short time, with random mutations occurring within them—creating a huge library of receptor variants directly within the cell. The best variants were then selected, for example, under the influence of a pathogen. Thus, according to the authors, the method will allow the creation of resistant varieties in a matter of weeks, without relying on existing resistant plants.
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science.org/doi/10.1126/scienc…