The gene that protects today's plants from caterpillar attack is from 28 million years ago
The defense mechanisms that plants use to recognize and respond to a common pest, the caterpillar, are the product of a single gene that has evolved over millions of years
Plants have lost a protective gene over time, and breeding plants or genetically engineering them to restore it could help protect crops from crop failure
certain types of pattern recognition receptors that can recognize distinct pathogens and herbivore-derived peptides, triggering an appropriate immune response
receptors of plants can help them deal with threats and pests. we don't know how many pest-derived molecule-activated immune responses in plants
The key evolutionary events that allowed plants to respond to a common threat were defined by the researchers as they set out to address this gap
Soya beans and black-eyed peas are included in a group of plants that can respond to a caterpillar's mouth when they eat through leaves
researchers found that the Inceptin Receptor has changed over millions of years, gaining or losing the ability to recognize caterpillars
The team was demonstrate that the species that could not detect the chemicals were missing the ancient gene
Evidence suggests that a new gene into the ancestral plant's genome more than 32 million years ago, which caused a rapid divergence of diverse forms of the new receptor
the ability to produce an enzyme that can react with caterpillar peptides is present and secondary loss of a crucial immune ability have been discovered by scientists