Yuichiro Tsuchiya, Masahiko Yoshimura, Yoshikatsu Sato, Keiko Kuwata, Shigeo Toh, Duncan Holbrook-Smith, Hua Zhang, Peter McCourt, Kenichiro Itami, Toshinori Kinoshita, and Shinya Hagihara

Science 2015, 349, 864. DOI: 10.1126/science.aab3831

Green light of hope to overcome Striga-triggered food insecurity in Africa
Fluorescent turn-on probe identifies the wake-up protein in witchweed seeds

Striga, a parasitic plant known as witchweed has seriously affected millions of hectares of crops fields in Africa that poses a major threat to food security. Nevertheless, the exact mechanism on how Striga seeds detect host crops has not been fully clear up to now. Here, we developed a new visualizing molecule named Yoshimulactone (YLG) to examine the process of Striga germination. By using YLG, we identified the receptor protein responsible for germination of Striga seeds. The outcome of our study is expected to accelerate research to control Striga germination and to save crop losses in Africa.
Detail information/ press release in ITbM website