Plant pathogens reorder physical structures of effectors to escape plant recognition

Phytophthora infestans is an oomycete, or water mold, that causes the devastating potato disease known as late blight or potato blight and was responsible for the famous Irish Famine of the 1840s. In a recently published study, a group of scientists focused on the effectors of that pathogen and confirmed that plant pathogens employ an array of mechanisms to escape plant immunity response. These mechanisms explain why integrated resistance in plants cannot last long.