Researchers led by Ken Shirasu at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science in Japan have identified an ancient protein that has the potential to help defend plants against tens of thousands of different bacteria and other pathogens.
Dubbed “SCORE,” this receptor detects cold-shock protein, variations of which are found in more than 85 percent of known bacteria, as well as fungi and insects. Experiments published Sept. 4, 2025, in the journal Science revealed that simply swapping out key sections of SCORE with substitutes can predictably change the type of cold-shock protein, and thus pathogen, it recognizes. This strategy could be used to engineer synthetic SCORE and provide plants, particularly crops and trees, with a means to defend themselves against whatever pathogens is plaguing them. When flowering plants such as rice, wheat, olive trees, and bamboo become infected with pathogens, they are smaller and have less yield. Fortunately, plants have receptor proteins that recognize molecules from pathogens when the two fit together, triggering an immune response.
Comments