Next generation disease resistance breeding in plants

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Plant diseases represent a significant threat to global food security. One of the most notorious plant pathogens is the Irish potato famine organism Phytophthora infestans. P. infestans, the causal agent of potato and tomato late blight, continues to cost modern agriculture billions of euros annually. As part of a large collaborative grant, this project will build on the identification of core set of effector proteins in P. infestans that are likely critical for pathogenicity. It also builds on the knowledge that plant proteins targeted by P. infestans effectors are important components of the immune response, and new insights into how effectors are recognised by plant Resistance proteins.
Specifically, we aim to understand the molecular details of how three P. infestans effectors modulate plant immunity. To do this we will study how these three effectors associate with their plant targets. We will use protein/protein interaction assays, such as yeast-2-hybrid and co-immunoprecipitation (in planta), to define important regions for interaction and then interrogate the interactions in solution using recombinant proteins and a variety of biophysical approaches. We will determine the three-dimensional structures of the effectors, their identified plant targets and possibly the complexes. Finally, we will biochemically dissect effector-activated Resistance-protein immunity and ask to what extent are the plant effector targets important for this.

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