Diphthamide is an Achilles heel shared by both plants and animals

The biomolecule diphthamide is essential for the proper formation of proteins in cells. When humans are infected with diphtheria, diphthamide is altered by the diphtheria toxin so that life-threatening complications can arise ...

What shedding light on plant growth could mean for cancer

Understanding how plants process light is key to improving crop yields. Light helps plants know when to grow and flower at the right time. Plants find light using proteins called photoreceptors. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory ...

How invading pathogens switch off plant cells' defenses

Many disease-causing bacteria are able to inhibit the defense mechanisms in plants and thus escape dissolution by the plant cell, a process known as xenophagy. Animal and human cells have a similar mechanism whereby the cell's ...

Newly discovered protein in fungus bypasses plant defenses

A protein that allows the fungus which causes white mold stem rot in more than 600 plant species to overcome plant defenses has been identified by a team of U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service and ...

Understanding how plant diseases do their damage

An international team of scientists has used neutron reflectometry techniques to understand how disease-causing pathogens damage the cell membranes of plants.

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