An ancient plant-fungus partnership has been revealed using advanced microscopy imaging, providing evidence of the mutually beneficial relationship that enabled plants to adapt to life on land.
The University of Cambridge hosted a visit from local MP, and Farming Minister, Daniel Zeichner MP at the Sainsbury Laboratory.
Scientists have created plants whose cells and tissues ‘blush’ with beetroot pigments when they are colonised by fungi that help them take up nutrients from the soil.
Scientists at the University of Cambridge have uncovered striking similarities in how two distantly related plants defend themselves against pathogens despite splitting from their common ancestor more than 400 million years ago.
A gene newly-linked to plant self-defence may hold the key to saving important crops from a deadly disease, scientists at Cambridge's Sainsbury Laboratory now hope.
Relationship between plants and filamentous microbes not only dates back millions of years, but modern plants have maintained this ancient mechanism to accommodate and respond to microbial invaders.
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