Plant Biochemistry Science News

 Plants exist in a delicate balance with insects and other pests, such as viruses, bacteria, and fungi. It has long been known that the pests are able to disrupt the metabolism of plants, but only recently has it been recognized that plants produce chemicals with the same effect on pests. It is now becoming apparent that at least some plants have rather remarkable defense mechanisms that help them ward off attacks by pests. Experimental manipulation of these mechanisms for defense against plant pests has been hampered by the limited knowledge of how they operate. But key elements of two different mechanisms were reported at the recent Centennial Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). One group of investigators reported the identification of a group of naturally occurring inhibitors of juvenile hormone, a chemical that is important in insect development. A second reported the identification of a substance that elicits in plants the accumulation of a chemical that is analogous to interferon in humans. Both discoveries represent potential first steps in the development of new types of pesticides that would be safer for the environment. Juvenile hormones are relatively simple compounds that are present in all insects throughout most of their normal development.They are absent only during metamorphosis, the period when a larva changes into an adult insect. Juvenile hormones and synthetic analogs have been used as insecticides because their application to insects.   

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