The silverleaf whitefly, one of the major crop pests in the tropics, has at least 49 plant genes transferred into the insect genome. reveals a new study.
Such a large number of genes transferred between plants and an insect have never been detected before. These findings open the door to new research on plant-insect relationships that could lead to innovative pest control methods and reduce pesticide use.
The war between plants and herbivorous insects goes back millions of years and led both heroes to an arms race. As plants display signals and put up physical and chemical barriers, insects devise clever strategies to circumvent these barriers. But the genes involved in insect adaptation sometimes have surprising origins.
Recent research in 2020 and 2021 showed that two plant genes were transferred into the genome of the silver leaf whitefly (bemisia tabaci), with a gene that gives the whitefly the ability to neutralize toxins produced by plants as a defense mechanism.
Two scientists intrigued by this finding, one (National Research Institute of Agriculture, Food and Environment) and another from the French research agency CNRS tried to find out how many plant-derived genes are in the whitefly genome, which was fully sequenced in 2016. Genome Biology and Evolution.
By performing a bioinformatics analysis, the researchers identified 49 plant genes in the whitefly genome derived from 24 independent horizontal gene transfer events. According to INRAE, many of these genes show functional traits, meaning they are expressed in insects and have sequences with signs of evolutionary pressure, so they play a potential role in insects.
The researchers’ results also show that many of the identified genes, such as those involved in the production of enzymes that break down plant cell walls, play a known role in the relationships between plants and their parasites.
this is probably reflects the result of the natural selection process of plant genes in insectsmay have allowed the whitefly to adapt to a wide variety of plant species. The origin and mechanism behind these transfers are still unknown, but they all date back several million years.
This is the first time that so much gene transfer has been detected between plants and insects.. This work opens the door to new research on plant-pest relationships as well as crop pest control methods. Understanding the role of transferred genes for plants and insects may lead to innovative pest control methods based on plant breeding (reproduction) that can reduce pesticide use.
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