Lexington, Kentucky
March 4, 2009
Each year, soybean producers spend
countless hours preventing and combating diseases that annually
result in a 14 percent yield loss to the crop in the United
States. Trying to help farmers in their efforts, plant
pathologists in the University of
Kentucky College of Agriculture are studying ways to
strengthen soybean disease resistance.
By turning a foe into a friend, a UK research group led by plant
pathologist Said Ghabrial has developed a bean pod mottle virus
vector that identifies potential beneficial proteins in
soybeans. They believe it could play a big role in increased
disease resistance to important plant pathogens. The researchers
continue to explore the vector’s possibilities through grants
funded by the Kentucky Soybean Board, the United Soybean Board
and the North Central Soybean Research Program.
“We are targeting a large number of disease pathogens,” Ghabrial
said. “With the vector there’s no limit to which genes we can
test, and we can quickly get results.”
While the vector’s name may concern some, only a mild strain of
the bean pod mottle virus is used in these studies. Therefore,
only mild symptoms are produced, and the virus causes little or
no apparent damage to the crop.
“At the stage of identifying proteins of interest, there should
not be any concern of virus infection among the growers,”
Ghabrial said.
The vector works by quickly moving through the plant. As it goes
through the plant, it produces proteins of interest that may
help to enhance the plant’s resistance to particular diseases.
Plant virus-based vectors, like the bean pod mottle virus
vector, have several benefits. Since they move quickly through
the plant and generate high levels of potential beneficial
proteins, they can produce results faster than traditional
methods. This means less time and money spent by researchers in
identifying proteins.
With the vector, UK researchers will conduct studies to
determine which candidate proteins are critical to helping the
plant stay healthy and fight diseases and which hinder its
ability. Once researchers identify the proteins to target, they
can look for ways to increase the valuable ones in a
cost-effective manner.
In future research, Ghabrial hopes to develop new varieties of
soybeans that are resistant to troublesome diseases, such as
soybean rust and soybean cyst nematode.
“We hope to use the bean pod mottle virus vector to screen
proteins that have antifungal and anti-nematode
characteristics,” he said. “We may be able to over express those
proteins to defend against the diseases.”
UK College of Agriculture, through its land-grant mission,
reaches across the commonwealth with teaching, research and
extension to enhance the lives of Kentuckians.
By Katie Pratt |
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