Molecular enhancements help plants light up when they're under attack

Imagine if plants could tell us exactly when they were stressed, infected or eaten by insects, by lighting up. A new study led by Dr Karen Sarkisyan, head of the synthetic biology group at MRC’s Laboratory of Medical Sciences (LMS), borrowed the molecular machinery of fungi and inserted it into plants to do just that. In a paper published in Nature Communications, scientists have engineered plants that can glow in the dark when their natural immune systems are activated.