News
MPP research news
2020/11/19
Volker Hegenauer successfully defended his thesis! Congratulations!
2020/10/21
The dialogue of dodder with tomato at a molecular level
Biologists at FAU identify a protein which recognises Cuscuta as a parasite
Working together with researchers from the University of Tübingen, the University of Tromsø, the UC Davis and the Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, biologists from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) have discovered how tomato plants identify Cuscuta spp. as a parasite. The plant has a protein in its cell walls that is identified as ‘foreign’ by Cuscuta Receptor 1 (CuRe1) in cultivated tomato. The findings have been recently published in the journal Nature Communications.*
Cuscuta spp., also known as dodder, is a parasitic vine which grafts to the host plant using haustoria to obtain water, minerals and carbohydrates. The parasite also attacks and damages crops such as oilseed rape, sweetcorn, soy, flax or clover. Although the infection generally goes undetected by the host, some species of tomato actively defend themselves by forming lignified tissue, which prevents tomato from the intruding haustoria. In earlier research, the biologists discovered that these tomatoes possess a special receptor, the Cuscuta Receptor 1 (CuRe1), which triggers the defence mechanism. However, until now it was unclear how the receptor recognises the danger posed by the dodder.
The researchers have now succeeded in answering this question: the dodder possesses a specific marker in its cellular wall, a glycine-rich protein (GRP). Using its receptor CuRe1, the tomato is able to recognise the molecular pattern of the GRP as well as a 21 aa long peptide epitope (Crip21) and identify the dodder as a pathogen, and triggers the immune reaction as a result. The new findings concerning the molecular dialogue between the Cuscuta marker and the tomato receptor may help to increase the resistance of crop plants against parasitic plants.
* DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19147-4
“The tomato receptor CuRe1 senses a cell wall protein to identify Cuscuta as a pathogen”
2020, October, 21st
(German) link to Department Biology news tracker:
https://www.biologie.nat.fau.de/2020/10/20/pflanzlicher-dialog-auf-molekularer-ebene/
2020/09
Review article by Petra Dietrich in The Plant Physiology
“Plant Cyclic Nucleotide-Gated Channels: New Insights on Their Functions and Regulation
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32576644/
2020/08/15
The Lab-Move of Lab Albert from ZMBP Uni Tübingen to the FAU Erlangen
Scientists on the road!