Unexpected story: Mushrooms use light to attack wheat plants

Parastagonospora nodorum has been combined with sunlight to attack wheat and make this food crop highly affected.

According to scientists from the University of Western Australia, a fungus named Parastagonospora nodorum has the ability to create a compound that destroys plant cells when they come into contact with sunlight. This destructive substance, called elsinochrome, is considered to destroy powerful plant cells in light conditions.

For a more detailed study, the scientists used the following control and gene control techniques to activate Parastagonospora nodorum to produce elsinochrome, to interact with wheat stem cells in light conditions.

The study results showed that Parastagonospora nodorum fungus will not normally produce elsinochrome destroyer to save energy unless it is exposed to wheat stem cells, Heng Chooi, a molecular scientist at UWA. said in a statement.

'This is a strange molecular mechanism, it is difficult to determine the mechanism of action of mushrooms on wheat plants after being infected'.

Elsinochrome destroyer belongs to a molecular family called perylenequinones . When exposed to light, these molecules produce powerful oxidizing compounds, intense reactions, damage to cell membranes and proteins of infected plants.

Chooi said: "When we deleted the fungal gene responsible for producing elsinochrome toxins, we found that the fungus tends to reduce the ability to infect and destroy wheat plants."

Previously, scientists also monitored perylenequinone molecular behavior, which caused infections that inflicted significant amounts of wheat plants worldwide. Combined with recent research, we need to take measures to protect this food crop after identifying infectious agents.

Chooi concludes: "This study also opens up new opportunities to find ways to help fungi produce herbicide compounds that harm or cause wheat to become resistant to similar destructive substances caused by harmful fungi. out ' .

This research has just been published in Environmental Microbiology.