This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)."
Host plant resistance is the most effective, economical, and environmentally friendly way to control plant diseases. Although significant progress about the interaction of plant NB-LRR-type resistance gene and the corresponding bacterial effector gene has been made in the past decades, the mechanism of why certain NB-LRR genes function across taxonomic species is very intriguing but not much studied. The investigator identified a maize disease resistance gene Rxo1 which encodes a NB-LRR protein that could recognize the cognate bacterial effector avrRxo1 and trigger defense responses in diverse plant species. The investigator will use the Rxo1/avrRxo1 system to address the important topic of Restricted Taxonomic Functionality (RTF) vs Broad Taxonomic Functionality (BTF) of NB-LRR genes by using a combination of genetic, molecular biological, and biochemical approaches. Understanding the mechanism of RTF vs BTF will enable plant breeders to transfer NB-LRR genes from model species into important crop plants to achieve durable disease resistance. The project's broader impacts include intensive training experiences for postdoc, graduate, and undergraduate students in broad topics of modern plant biology such as plant cell biology, plant tissue culture, transformation, marker-aided identification of transgenic plants, and gene expression. The project will also support workshops to train minority high school students and attract them to a career in modern plant biology
