Immunity to multiple pathogens: identification of a fungal immune receptor in barley to ascomycete and basidiomycete fungi

The majority of plants are resistant to the majority of pathogens that exist in nature. In contrast, it is the minority of interactions that permit lifecycle completion of the pathogen. The proclivity of nonhost resistance to the majority of pathogens suggests plants have a substantial capacity to resist various pathogens and/or that pathogens must make crucial adaptations to proliferate on a plant species. We have identified a resistance locus that conditions resistance to the ascomycete and basidiomycete fungi Magnaporthe oryzae and Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici. These two pathogens cause significant impact on global wheat and rice production, and the possibility that the same immune receptor conditions multiple pathogen recognition has profound implications in plant pathology. The project will involve the isolation of the fungal immune receptor through a combination of map-based cloning, association genetics, and bioinformatics.