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Engineering nucleotide‐binding leucine‐rich repeat immune receptors to achieve broad‐spectrum disease resistance in plants

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Engineering nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat immune receptors to achieve broad-spectrum disease resistance in plantsPlant diseases cause up to 30% of global crop losses annually, posing a severe threat to food security.To meet the growing food demand, developing diseaseresistant crops is urgent for modern agriculture.Most plant disease resistance (R) genes encode nucleotidebinding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) proteins, which are intracellular immune receptors composed of variable Nterminal domains, a central conserved NB-ARC domain (nucleotide-binding adaptor shared with APAF-1, Rproteins and CED-4), and a C-terminal leucine-rich repeat (LRR) domain.Three major groups of plant NLRs are defined according to their diverse N-termini: coiledcoil (CC) domain-containing NLRs (CNLs), Toll-like/ interleukin-1 receptor (TIR) domain-containing NLRs (TNLs), and RESISTANCE TO POWDERY MILDEW 8like CC (CC R ) domain-containing NLRs (RNLs).Generally, CNLs and TNLs act as sensor NLRs to detect pathogen effectors, whereas RNLs, also termed helper NLRs, function downstream of many sensor NLRs to transmit immune signals. 1 Sensor NLRs recognize specific pathogen effectors either directly or indirectly and then trigger effector-triggered immunity (ETI), a robust immune response which often manifests as the hypersensitive response (HR).Certain NLRs mediating antiviral immunity even confer extreme resistance without visible HR.Given its essential role in plant immunity, NLR transferring mediated by conventional breeding or transgenesis has been deployed for disease resistance improvement in susceptible cultivars.However, this strategy is often limited by resistance resources, immune background of the recipients, potential growth-defense trade-offs, and the lack of durability. 2 Advances in understanding NLR structure and activation mechanisms now enable the design of NLRs with new or expanded recognition profiles.[2][3][4] Here, we will summarize these pioneering studies of NLR engineering for broad-spectrum and durable disease resistance in plants.

Source: New plant protection.

DOI: 10.1002/npp2.70023

Authors: Yan Wang, Yuzhen Mei, Fangfang Li