Interfamily transfer of a plant pattern-recognition receptor confers broad-spectrum bacterial resistance.
Plant diseases cause massive losses in agriculture. Increasing the natural defenses of plants may reduce the impact of phytopathogens on agricultural productivity. Pattern-recognition receptors (PRRs) detect microbes by recognizing conserved pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs). Although the overall importance of PAMP-triggered immunity for plant defense is established, it has not been used to confer disease resistance in crops. We report that activity of a PRR is retained after its transfer between two plant families. Expression of EFR (ref. 4), a PRR from the cruciferous plant Arabidopsis thaliana, confers responsiveness to bacterial elongation factor Tu in the solanaceous plants Nicotiana benthamiana and tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), making them more resistant to a range of phytopathogenic bacteria from different genera. Our results in controlled laboratory conditions suggest that heterologous expression of PAMP recognition systems could be used to engineer broad-spectrum disease resistance to important bacterial pathogens, potentially enabling more durable and sustainable resistance in the field.
Séverine
S
Lacombe
Alejandra
A
Rougon-Cardoso
Emma
E
Sherwood
Nemo
N
Peeters
Douglas
D
Dahlbeck
H Peter
HP
van Esse
Matthew
M
Smoker
Ghanasyam
G
Rallapalli
Bart P H J
BP
Thomma
Brian
B
Staskawicz
Jonathan D G
JD
Jones
Cyril
C
Zipfel
D018407:Bacterial Physiological Phenomena; D007113:Immunity, Innate / Q000502:physiology*; D010935:Plant Diseases / Q000276:immunology* / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000517:prevention & control; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000502:physiology*; D051192:Receptors, Pattern Recognition / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*
D051192:Receptors, Pattern Recognition