An N-terminal motif in NLR immune receptors is functionally conserved across distantly related plant species
- The Sainsbury Laboratory, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom
- Imperial College London, United Kingdom
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Abstract
The molecular codes underpinning the functions of plant NLR immune receptors are poorly understood. We used in vitro Mu transposition to generate a random truncation library and identify the minimal functional region of NLRs. We applied this method to NRC4—a helper NLR that functions with multiple sensor NLRs within a Solanaceae receptor network. This revealed that the NRC4 N-terminal 29 amino acids are sufficient to induce hypersensitive cell death. This region is defined by the consensus MADAxVSFxVxKLxxLLxxEx (MADA motif) that is conserved at the N-termini of NRC family proteins and ~20% of coiled-coil (CC)-type plant NLRs. The MADA motif matches the N-terminal a1 helix of Arabidopsis NLR protein ZAR1, which undergoes a conformational switch during resistosome activation. Immunoassays revealed that the MADA motif is functionally conserved across NLRs from distantly related plant species. NRC-dependent sensor NLRs lack MADA sequences indicating that this motif has degenerated in sensor NLRs over evolutionary time.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Gatsby Charitable Foundation
- Sophien Kamoun
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
- Sophien Kamoun
European Research Council
- Sophien Kamoun
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Jian-Min Zhou, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Publication history
- Received: July 9, 2019
- Accepted: November 23, 2019
- Accepted Manuscript published: November 27, 2019 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: January 6, 2020 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2019, Adachi et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Further reading
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- Plant Biology
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- Microbiology and Infectious Disease
- Plant Biology
