Plants can’t get COVID-19, but they can get infected by a range of other viruses Some of those viruses can cause huge problems for crops A ring spot virus, for instance, threatens papaya fruit trees in Taiwan Options exist to fight plant viruses, such as proteins to treat leaves But two Taiwanese high school students have found a novel anti-viral tactic: They zap plants with electricity
Shock-treated plants later became less vulnerable to viral infections, the young scientists now report
You might think of this shock treatment like a vaccine, note Fur Li and Jun The two girls are in their final year at Taipei First Girls’ High School in Taipei City As part of a research project, they have been working with tobacco plants This species makes a good model for testing, because it has been studied a lot. It’s also in the same family as some major crops, such as tomatoes
Electric shocks should stress a plant in much the same way that a virus would, the teens reasoned — by activating its immune system Usually, when a virus attacks, it increases the production of a chemical in the leaves called salicylic acid, this natural compound is responsible for aspirin’s ability to fight inflammation In tobacco plants, this compound turns on a gene called PR1 It triggers a reaction that alerts the plant to mount a defense against a virus
“It works to send messages to other leaves,” Fur explains
It essentially warns a plant: “Oh, there’s a virus You should prepare!”
Many types of stress — such as heat and drought — can turn on a plant’s immune system, but a brief electric shock should achieve the same immune benefits, and without harming the plant
When each plant was a few weeks old, the teens stuck two copper wires into the stalk beneath a leaf The wires were connected to a device that sent an electric current to the stalk through one wire and then back through to the device through the other wire Plants got zapped at different voltages and for different lengths of time If the voltage was too high or the shock lasted too long, the leaves withered Fur and Jun got the best results by delivering a 10-volt current for 10 minutes
Three hours after this shock treatment, the teens froze a plant’s leaves and then extracted genetic information from the plant using PCR Short for polymerase chain reaction, it’s a technique used to identify genes These tests showed that the PR1 gene in the treated plants had turned on
And it proved effective, the young researchers now show
Fur and Jun scratched the leaves of treated and untreated plants with a gritty sand-like material to create open cuts Then the teens crushed virus-infected leaves into a juice Afterward, they rubbed that juice into the wounded, but otherwise healthy, leaves
They hoped their zapped plants would show less viral infection than untreated plants Sure enough, the electroshock treatment cut virus levels by about half Expression of the PR1 gene in treated plants was much stronger than in untreated plants This points to the treated plants having a stronger immune defense
You must be logged in to post a comment.