Nematode Nemesis

Certain nematode worms within the soil are parasitic to plants and can cause significant damage to a variety of vegetable crops. Farmers can spread nematicides on their fields to kill the worms and prevent crop destruction, but the use of such chemical pesticides has associated environmental and health risks. Enter, the worm-fighting hero, Mortierella alpina. This soil-dwelling fungus has been found to produce its own natural nematicides – substances called malpinins – which accumulate in the nematode’s gut and surrounding tissue. A worm’s gut is shown here, with the distribution of a certain malpinin colour coded for intensity. The malpinins don’t kill the nematodes instantly, but inhibit their eating and growth, thereby keeping worm numbers down. Importantly, these discoveries pave the way for investigations into whether the use of M. alpina itself, or mass-produced malpinins, could become ecological and healthier alternatives to existing chemical pesticides.

Written by Ruth Williams

Ruth Williams

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Ruth is a freelance science journalist based in the US. She's a regular correspondent for The Scientist, and her work has appeared in The Lancet, Nature, Scientific American Mind, BBC Focus and elsewhere. Twitter @rooph

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• Image by Constanze Schultz/Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology from work by Hannah Büttner and colleagues
• Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology, Hans Knöll Institute, Jena, Germany
• Image originally published with no restrictions – Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Research published in Journal of the American Chemical Society, December 2024