Plants detect parasitic nematodes through a “danger signal”

　　　　　

July 31, 2025

A mechanism potentially shared with fungi and insects

Researchers at the RIKEN CSRS, in collaboration with the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO), have revealed for the first time how plants recognize animal-type pathogens such as plant-parasitic nematodes at the molecular level. This finding is expected to contribute to the development of crops with broad-spectrum resistance.

Plant immune responses to parasitic nematodes have remained unclear due to the difficulty of obtaining sufficient quantities for biochemical analysis. The international group discovered that extracts from the free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), which can be cultured in large amounts, strongly activate immune responses in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. This led to the identification of an active substance. They found that a 24-amino-acid peptide within the enzyme trehalase, secreted during nematode infection, strongly induces plant immunity. Using mutant lines unresponsive to the peptide, the corresponding plant receptor was identified. The peptide is highly conserved among various plant-parasitic nematodes, and similar peptides were found in trehalases from pathogenic fungi and aphids, suggesting a shared recognition mechanism and the peptide works as a “microbe-associated molecular pattern” (MAMP). This discovery is expected to advance plant defense research and the development of broadly resistant crops.

 

Original article

Science Advances　doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adv8896

E. Iino, Y. Kadota, N. Maki, E. Ono, K. Sato, N. Ishihama, B. Pok M. Ngou, M. W Schmid, T. Suzuki, T. Uehara, K. Shirasu,

"A trehalase-derived MAMP triggers LecRK-V-mediated immune responses in Arabidopsis".

Contact

Ken Shirasu; Group Director
Yasuhiro Kadota; Senior Research Scientist
Plant Immunity Research Group