BoostR · Engineering disease resistance gene networks: synthetic helpers for expanded sensors

Engineering disease resistance gene networks: synthetic helpers for expanded sensors

One of the biggest challenges facing agricultural research is to determine how to produce more food on less land. Plant diseases negatively impact agricultural productivity by reducing the quality and quantity of food produced. To generate long-lasting resistance to plant diseases, an improved understanding of how pathogens cause disease and how the plant responds to the invading pathogens is needed. A class of specialized intracellular immune receptors known as NLRs (Nucleotide binding leucine rich repeat containing proteins) form one of the most important genetic components of the plant immune system. Often referred to as resistance genes, NLRs are useful targets for generating disease resistant crops, and have long been (un)knowingly selected by plant breeders for crop improvement. However, NLRs are frequently overcome by pathogen evolution. Conventional breeding is limited by the availability of NLRs with useful recognition specificities, one way to overcome this is to design synthetic NLRs that possess novel properties. The functional principles of NLR mediated immunity is far more complex than previously thought. We know that some NLRs work in pairs, in which a sensor NLR, specialized to recognize the pathogen, is coupled with a helper NLR that is involved in initiating the defence signal. More recently, a group of NLRs in the Solanaceae plant family, which include potatoes and tomatoes, were shown to form an intricate signalling network. In this network, a small number of helper NLRs, named NRCs (NLRs-required for cell death; NRC2, NRC3, NRC4) are paired with a group of agronomically important sensor NLRs, with varying degrees of specificity, to confer resistance against diverse pathogens. Advancing our understanding of mechanisms underlying plant immunity will provide crucial input for improving disease control measures to ameliorate agricultural production. The overall aim of my proposal is to exploit new knowledge of NLR sensor-helper interaction networks to generate synthetic NRC proteins that possess broad-spectrum disease resistance. My hypothesis is that altering NRC helper proteins will improve disease resistance against a number of pathogens that devastate Solanaceae crops.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз