Advertisement

Could this eco-friendly pesticide from China mean big savings in crop losses?

  • The substance eliminates 95 per cent of the harmful tobacco mosaic virus in just days without leaving behind residue or causing drug resistance, according to paper
  • The technology could also be used to treat Alzheimer’s disease and improve immunity in humans, the researchers say

Reading Time:2 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
2
Researchers in China have developed an antiviral agent that targets the tobacco mosaic virus, which causes mottled browning of tobacco leaves and can infect other crops such as tomatoes. Photo: Shutterstock
Scientists in China say they have developed an environmentally friendly pesticide that could be used as an effective antiviral agent for plants.
Advertisement
The pesticide, which contains mineral nanoparticles that are beneficial to plants, inhibited 98.7 per cent of a viral infection in plant cells without leaving residue or causing drug resistance, according to the researchers.
The technology provides a new pathway to treat viral disease in plants. Once applied on a wide scale, it could prevent economic losses worth millions of US dollars caused by plant viruses every year, the researchers said.

The discovery could also be applied to treat humans and improve immunity, they said.

The research, led by Professors Xu Chuanlai and Kuang Hua with the State Key Laboratory of Food Science and Technology at Jiangnan University, was published in the peer-reviewed Nature Catalysis this month.

Xu and Kuang’s team developed an antiviral agent based on copper sulphide nanoparticles to eliminate the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). After seven days of treatment, the agent eliminated 98.7 per cent of the virus.

Advertisement
TMV causes a mottled browning of tobacco leaves and can infect other crops such as tomatoes. It has a rod-like form, with thousands of coat protein molecules forming a shell, or capsid, that surrounds and protects the central RNA.

The pesticide works by destroying this protective shell.

Advertisement