The research offers potential agricultural applications, including developing crops with stronger innate immunity to viral diseases to reduce global crop losses.

Specialised RNA-binding proteins identify double-stranded viral RNA at replication sites and attach to it, interfering with viral replication.

The findings have broad implications for agriculture and health, including virus-resistant crops and research into dissolving harmful protein aggregates linked to dementia and improving cancer therapies.

Led by Mandar V. Deshmukh and published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the study shows that RNA-binding proteins form gel-like biomolecular condensates at viral replication sites to hinder viral RNA replication, with supporting evidence from NMR, fluorescence microscopy, and simulations.

Proteins with charged surfaces form sticky patches that drive clustering into networks, creating biomolecular condensates that act as a molecular glue around viral RNA to block replication.

Beyond plants, understanding these sticky protein interactions could inform human health by guiding therapies for neurodegenerative diseases and certain cancers and steering future drug development.

The team used a combination of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, fluorescence microscopy, and molecular dynamics simulations to unravel how the mechanism works.

This discovery reframes RNA‑protein interactions as dynamic, phase‑separated, droplet-like compartments inside cells, challenging the old lock‑and‑key view and the idea of cells being solely membrane-bound.

Researchers at the CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology uncovered a plant defense mechanism where sticky, liquid-like protein condensates trap and disable invading viral RNA, preventing replication in plant cells.