Plant and human immune systems are closer than we think, study finds

Few living things seem to have less in common than plants and animals, but that assumption is being increasingly challenged. A study published last month in Nature Plants describes shared biochemical pathways involved in vitamin B6 levels that link human neurological health and plant immunity in ways that may teach us how plant immunity works — and how to better treat neurological conditions, like epilepsy, in humans. “We’ve always been intrigued by overlap between plants and humans,” study coauthor Pradeep Kachroo, a botany professor at the University of Kentucky, told Salon in a video interview. As part of this work, Huazhan Liu, Kachroo’s postdoctoral scholar and this study’s lead researcher, was trying to clarify how the amino acid lysine gets broken down and used in plants. Enzymes found in plants and animals have been repurposed to regulate the levels of vitamin B6 — which we humans can’t make ourselves but, supplements aside, only get from plants — in very similar ways.