Australia
April 18, 2018

Do you know what a microtubule is? If you could dream up the most complex way to make a tube, microtubules are it!

Assembling a microtubule is about as complex as assembling a car, and there are thousands of them in every cell, in every living thing.

If you aren’t super interested in the detail, all you need to know is that trifluralin kills plants by binding to microtubules and stopping cell division.

AHRI Researcher Qin Yu and her team of Chinese PhD students have recently identified the exact mutation in microtubules that stops trifluralin binding to them and causes 4 to 8-fold trifluralin resistance.

One tiny change to the protein structure is enough to stop trifluralin binding to the tubulin protein allowing the ryegrass to survive.

If you are into detail and want to dig a little deeper and find out how trifluralin works and how microtubules are made, read more by clicking through to the website below.

READ MORE

Website: http://www.ahri.uwa.edu.au/

Published: April 18, 2018