BRISTOL, United Kingdom—A new study published in Current Biology reveals how bacterial pathogens evolve and adapt to stresses from host plants, which one day may help researchers develop new ways of tackling pathogens that cause extensive and costly damage to beans and other food crops.
“As the bacteria die within the plant as a result of the immune response, they release chunks of their DNA which can be taken up by surrounding bacteria. This mechanism allows bacteria to evolve much more quickly than normal, as they gain huge numbers of new genes in one go,” said a researcher. “This work is a leap forward in understanding bacterial evolution. The transfer of large pieces of DNA containing possibly hundreds of genes from one bacterium to another, has only been theorized in plant pathogens and never before demonstrated happening naturally within the plant. This work gives an insight into how pathogens evolve within host plants, which may help in developing new methods of disease control to prevent costly damage to bean and other crops.”