Antibodies from Alpacas Could Help Farmers Protect Crops, Study Shows

According to a recent study, alpaca antibodies may help farmers protect their crops.

Giving plants antibodies from animals is a new strategy developed by biotechnology researchers at the University of East Anglia to increase disease resistance. The group describes modifying alpaca and llama antibodies to enable them to combat a specific type of plant fungus.

Alpacas, Crops, Diseases

Research from the past demonstrated that animals are far more effective than plants at warding off diseases brought on by microbes. Sites of plant infection merely perish and fall to the ground. The plant perishes if too many of its parts die off or get a disease.

Animals, on the contrary, have sophisticated immune systems that frequently only require a few weeks to produce new antibodies in response to newly discovered threats. In this new endeavor, scientists questioned whether it might be possible to use a portion of an animal's immune system to assist plants in warding off infections.

To find out, the research group built on earlier work and developed a method to disrupt cellular functions in mammalian cells using single-domain antibody fragments derived from alpacas. The Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research team has carried out research similar to this in the past.

Antibodies from Alpacas

Pikobodies, or antibodies from alpacas and llamas that had been fused with the Pik-1 protein, were developed by the team for the latest study. The protein is normally found in plants that resemble tobacco plants in nature; it aids in the detection of a protein that permits a specific type of blast fungus to infect plant cells. Additionally, the team modified the antibodies to target fluorescent proteins.

The next step is for the team to inject the pikobodies into different plant species before exposing them to the fungus. They discovered that when plants were exposed to fluorescent proteins, cells in the plants died, leaving behind brown spots on the plant's leaves.

Four of the 11 versions of their pikobodies that they tested were not lethal to plant cells and also killed only those cells that contained specific proteins, demonstrating the viability of using such a tactic to aid in plant defense.

Additionally, the researchers discovered that their various pikobodies could be combined in various ways to give plants numerous ways to combat a single disease, PhysOrg reports.

The paper by a team of biotechnology researchers from the University of East Anglia was recently published in the journal Science.

Plant Diseases

Plant diseases can have a significant impact on crop quality and yield, according to Biome Makers. Some of these diseases have seen significant increases in 2022, particularly in North America. Knowing the most prevalent diseases is crucial so that measures can be taken to stop them from eradicating entire crops.

In 2022, there will be several additional plant illnesses, including fungi like Rhizoctonia solani and Phakopsora pachyrhizi. Other well-known crops, including tomatoes, spinach, and potatoes, are affected by Phytophthora, albugo, and Streptomyces scabies, respectively.