RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Plant pathogens convergently evolved to counteract redundant nodes of an NLR immune receptor network
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2021.02.03.429184
DO 10.1101/2021.02.03.429184
A1 Lida Derevnina
A1 Mauricio P. Contreras
A1 Hiroaki Adachi
A1 Jessica Upson
A1 Angel Vergara Cruces
A1 Rongrong Xie
A1 Jan Sklenar
A1 Frank L.H. Menke
A1 Sam T. Mugford
A1 Dan MacLean
A1 Wenbo Ma
A1 Saskia Hogenhout
A1 Aska Goverse
A1 Abbas Maqbool
A1 Chih-Hang Wu
A1 Sophien Kamoun
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/02/03/2021.02.03.429184.abstract
AB In plants, NLR (nucleotide-binding domain and leucine-rich repeat-containing) proteins can form receptor networks to confer hypersensitive cell death and innate immunity. One class of NLRs, known as NRCs (NLR required for cell death), are central nodes in a complex network that protects against multiple pathogens and comprises up to half of the NLRome of solanaceous plants. Given the prevalence of this NLR network, we hypothesized that pathogens convergently evolved to secrete effectors that target NRC activities. To test this, we screened a library of 167 bacterial, oomycete, nematode and aphid effectors for their capacity to suppress the cell death response triggered by the NRC-dependent disease resistance proteins Prf and Rpi-blb2. Among five of the identified suppressors, one cyst nematode protein and one oomycete protein suppress the activity of autoimmune mutants of NRC2 and NRC3, but not NRC4, indicating that they specifically counteract a subset of NRC proteins independently of their sensor NLR partners. Whereas the cyst nematode effector SPRYSEC15 binds the nucleotide-binding domain of NRC2 and NRC3, the oomycete effector AVRcap1b suppresses the response of these NRCs via the membrane trafficking-associated protein NbTOL9a (Target of Myb 1-like protein 9a). We conclude that plant pathogens have evolved to counteract central nodes of the NRC immune receptor network through different mechanisms. Coevolution with pathogen effectors may have driven NRC diversification into functionally redundant nodes in a massively expanded NLR network.Competing Interest StatementS.K. receives funding from industry on NLR biology.