A femtomolar-range suicide germination stimulant for the parasitic plant Striga hermonthica

  • Science. 2018 Dec 14;362(6420):1301-1305. doi: 10.1126/science.aau5445.
Daisuke Uraguchi  1 ,  Keiko Kuwata  2 ,  Yuh Hijikata  2  3 ,  Rie Yamaguchi  2 ,  Hanae Imaizumi  2 ,  Sathiyanarayanan Am  2 ,  Christin Rakers  3 ,  Narumi Mori  4 ,  Kohki Akiyama  4 ,  Stephan Irle  2  3 ,  Peter McCourt  5 ,  Toshinori Kinoshita  2  3 ,  Takashi Ooi  1  2  6 ,  Yuichiro Tsuchiya  7
Affiliations
  • 1. Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8603, Japan. [email protected] [email protected] [email protected].
  • 2. Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (WPI-ITbM), Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan.
  • 3. Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8602, Japan.
  • 4. Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Osaka Prefecture University, 1-1 Gakuen-cho, Naka-ku, Sakai, Osaka 599-8531, Japan.
  • 5. Department of Cell and Systems Biology, University of Toronto, 25 Willcocks Street, Toronto M5S 3B2, Canada.
  • 6. Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology, Japan Science and Technology Agency (CREST), Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan.
  • 7. Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (WPI-ITbM), Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan. [email protected] [email protected] [email protected].
PMID: 30545887 DOI: 10.1126/science.aau5445
Abstract

The parasitic plant Striga hermonthica has been causing devastating damage to the crop production in Africa. Because Striga requires host-generated strigolactones to germinate, the identification of selective and potent strigolactone agonists could help control these noxious weeds. We developed a selective agonist, sphynolactone-7, a hybrid molecule originated from chemical screening, that contains two functional modules derived from a synthetic scaffold and a core component of strigolactones. Cooperative action of these modules in the activation of a high-affinity strigolactone receptor ShHTL7 allows sphynolactone-7 to provoke Striga germination with potency in the femtomolar range. We demonstrate that sphynolactone-7 is effective for reducing Striga parasitism without impinging on host strigolactone-related processes.

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