title: Survey of resistance gene analogs in Solanum caripense, a relative of potato and tomato, and update on R gene genealogy.
abstract: The resistance (R) proteins of the TIR- and non-TIR (or CC-) superfamilies possess a nucleotide binding site (NBS) domain. Within an R gene, the NBS is the region of highest conservation, suggesting an essential role in triggering R protein activity. We compared the NBS domain of functional R genes and resistance gene analogs (RGA) amplified from S. caripense genomic DNA via PCR using specific and degenerate primers with its counterpart from other plants. An overall high degree of sequence conservation was apparent throughout the P-loop, kinase-2 and kinase-3a motifs of NBS fragments from all plants. Within the non-TIR class of R genes a prominent sub-class similar to the potato R1 gene conferring resistance to late blight, was detected. All non-TIR-R1-like R gene fragments that were sequenced possessed an intact open reading frame, whereas 22% of all non-TIR-non-R1-like fragments and 59% of all TIR-NBS RGA fragments had an interrupted reading frame or contained transposon-specific sequence. The non-TIR-R1-like fragments had high similarity to Solanaceae R genes and low similarity to RGAs of other plant species including A. thaliana and the cereals. It is concluded that appearance of the non-TIR-R1-like NBS domain represents a relatively recent evolutionary development.
authors.affiliation: ARC Seibersdorf research G.m.b.H., Biotechnology Department, 2444 Seibersdorf, Austria. friederike.trognitz@arcs.ac.at
authors.forename: Friederike Ch
authors.initials: FCh
authors.lastname: Trognitz
authors.forename: Bodo R
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Trognitz
mesh_terms: D020816:Amino Acid Motifs; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D017343:Genes, Plant; D007113:Immunity, Innate / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D017385:Sequence Homology; D032322:Solanum / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology*