The war between plants and animals is not real. Fauna has advantages for movement to begin with. If that wasn’t enough, white flies have pinched a gene from plants and used it to remove the toxins that prevent some animals from eating a lot of leaves, according to a new paper published in Cell. Truly, this game is rigged.
Horizontal gene transfer is a common process among bacteria, where genes from one sex, such as those for antibiotic resistance, are introduced by another sex as if it were their own. This ability to share genes is one of the reasons that bacterial diseases can be so hard to beat. Ferns divide genes remarkably, contributing to survival as they are surrounded by plants with more developed reproductive methods.
Animals are known to have inherited genes from symbiotic bacteria, but not from plants, so scientists at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences were surprised to find a plant gene in white flies. These agricultural pests pose a particular threat to greenhouses because most are so small that they can push in where their predators cannot, before they breed quickly.
“You can’t find this gene, BtPMaT1, which neutralizes poisonous manure made by the plant, in any other insect species. “Professor Ted Turlings of the University of Neuchâtel said in a statement.” This appears to be the first recorded example of a movement a horizontal gene of an action gene from its insertion into an insect, “
Changing the antidote to your own poisons and leaving it lying around to steal your enemies does not seem to be the most cunning plans. However, plants are considered necessary BtPMaT1 so as not to poison themselves on their own toxins. That was great until the aphid-like white flies came and incorporated the gene into their own DNA.
Whiteflies make up the Aleyrodidae family, which includes over 1,500 species, but not all BtPMaT1 gine. Turlings and co-authors suspect that the gene migrated around 35 million years ago, but certainly less than 82 million years ago when white potato flies were sweet (Bemisia tabaci) who now possess the gene breaks away from others who do not.
It is difficult to believe the direct transfer of a plant gene to an animal. Instead; “We think the plant may have been infected with a virus BtPMaT1 gene and, after being infiltrated by a white fly, the virus must then have done something inside the insect with which that gene was incorporated into the genome of the white flies Turlings admits it is less like this sequence of events, especially since the virus does not appear to have taken advantage of the gene and did not last long. however, white flies, viruses, and the plants on which they feed are so abundant that even rare things happen now and then.
Considering their pest status, there is a market for anything that can cause even some white flies less damage, and co-authors of Turlings believe they have a response. They have genetically manipulated tomatoes to produce a small RNA molecule that disturbs the BtPMaT1, exposing them to the phenolic glycosides which are one of the most common plant protectors. The white flies that fed on the engineered tomatoes had 100 percent mortality. People can still rebalance the unfair war.