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China researchers develop AI platform for custom plant immune receptors
The team says programmable synthetic receptors could be introduced into crops to recognize specific bacterial, viral, or fungal proteins and trigger an immune response.
Chinese scientists, working with the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology and biotechnology company Qi Biodesign, have created an AI-guided platform to engineer programmable plant immune receptors to respond to emerging plant diseases.
According to the project, synthetic receptors can be inserted into plants to detect proteins produced by specific bacteria, viruses, and fungi, triggering an immune response intended to neutralize the threat.
HousingWire reports the researchers describe the approach as a versatile platform for plant immunity engineering, and they link the risk to agricultural systems that rely on large-scale monocultures of genetically uniform crops.
The team also notes that fast-evolving pathogens can overcome traditional resistance based on receptors encoded by resistance genes, and they warn about the potential for agro-terrorism and plant bioweapons when plant vulnerabilities are exploited.