PEOPLE who want cut the risk of unwanted infections in their gardens and farmland may benefit from a new discovery by Scottish scientists.
Communities of beneficial bacteria form a waterproof raincoat on plant roots to protect them from microbes that could potentially cause plant disease, according to the teams from Edinburgh and Dundee universities.
Bacterial raincoat discovery paves way to better crop protection
It may pave the way for new products to control this shield and improve its efficiency, which could help curb the risk of unwanted infections in agricultural or garden plants, the team says.
The scientists found the protective film formed by the common soil bacterium Bacillus subtilis incorporates proteins that change shape as they reach the film surface.
This exposes an impervious surface on the protein molecules, enabling them to slot together like a jigsaw puzzle, to protect bacteria underneath.
The film is able to repel water, which means other potentially harmful molecules also bounce off.
Professor Cait MacPhee, of Edinburgh's School of Physics and Astronomy, said: "Such a controlled shape change in a protein is unusual. This protein only responds in exactly the right way and in the right place."
Dr Nicola Stanley-Wall, of Dundee's Division of Molecular Microbiology, said: "Our findings highlight one of the amazing mechanisms that bacteria have evolved to provide protection from changes in their environment.
The study, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The team behind the finding plans to research furthr applications for their discovery.
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