At the 58th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Chemical Regulation of Plants, held at the Ikuta Campus of Meiji University from November 17 through 19, 2023, SUZUKI Taiki, a first-year doctoral student of the Laboratory of Plant Chemical Regulation, Agricultural Chemistry Program, Graduate School of Agriculture (Associate Professor SETO Yoshiya), received the Excellent Presentation Award. The presenter, presentation subject, and research content are as follows:
Presenter
SUZUKI Taiki, KURUMA Michio, NISHIYAMA Kotaro, SETO Yoshiya
Presentation subject
“Search for strigolactone-like active molecules produced by plant pathogens”
Research content
Strigolactone works as a hormone molecule that regulates the branching of a plant. It also works as a signaling molecule that is secreted into the rhizosphere to induce symbiosis with mycorrhizal fungi. On the other hand, root parasitic plants, which cause huge damage to agricultural products in Africa and other regions, have a distinctive germination system that germinates by recognizing strigolactone. It is known that there are cases where plant hormone molecules are also produced by some microorganisms, such as plant pathogens. Pathogens are thought to produce hormone molecules important for plant growth because they disrupt plant growth. On the other hand, there have been no reported cases on plant pathogens that produce strigolactone. The research group searched for plant pathogens that produce strigolactone-like molecules by using germination-inducing activity against root parasitic plants as an indicator, one of the effects of strigolactone as a marker, and could find such activity in the culture filtrate of a relatively well-known plant pathogen. Furthermore, the group tried to purify active molecules, and identified jasmonic acids, which are another plant hormone, as an active molecule. It was also found that these jasmonic acids directly bond with the strigolactone receptor. In other words, a new, unprecedented phenomenon was discovered in which one plant hormone exerts its effect by being recognized by another plant hormone receptor. Further research is expected to be conducted in the future.
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