The leucine-rich repeats in allelic barley MLA immune receptors define specificity towards sequence-unrelated powdery mildew avirulence effectors with a predicted common RNase-like fold.

Nucleotide-binding domain leucine-rich repeat-containing receptors (NLRs) in plants can detect avirulence (AVR) effectors of pathogenic microbes. The Mildew locus a (Mla) NLR gene has been shown to confer resistance against diverse fungal pathogens in cereal crops. In barley, Mla has undergone allelic diversification in the host population and confers isolate-specific immunity against the powdery mildew-causing fungal pathogen Blumeria graminis forma specialis hordei (Bgh).

A cell death assay in barley and wheat protoplasts for identification and validation of matching pathogen AVR effector and plant NLR immune receptors.

Background: Plant disease resistance to host-adapted pathogens is often mediated by host nucleotide-binding and leucine-rich repeat (NLR) receptors that detect matching pathogen avirulence effectors (AVR) inside plant cells. AVR-triggered NLR activation is typically associated with a rapid host cell death at sites of attempted infection and this response constitutes a widely used surrogate for NLR activation. However, it is challenging to assess this cell death in cereal hosts.

Multiple pairs of allelic MLA immune receptor-powdery mildew AVR effectors argue for a direct recognition mechanism.

Nucleotide-binding domain and leucine-rich repeat (NLR)-containing proteins in plants and animals mediate intracellular pathogen sensing. Plant NLRs typically detect strain-specific pathogen effectors and trigger immune responses often linked to localized host cell death. The barley disease resistance locus has undergone extensive functional diversification in the host population and encodes numerous allelic NLRs each detecting a matching isolate-specific avirulence effector (AVR) of the fungal pathogen f.

Signatures of host specialization and a recent transposable element burst in the dynamic one-speed genome of the fungal barley powdery mildew pathogen.

Background: Powdery mildews are biotrophic pathogenic fungi infecting a number of economically important plants. The grass powdery mildew, Blumeria graminis, has become a model organism to study host specialization of obligate biotrophic fungal pathogens. We resolved the large-scale genomic architecture of B.

Allelic barley MLA immune receptors recognize sequence-unrelated avirulence effectors of the powdery mildew pathogen.

Disease-resistance genes encoding intracellular nucleotide-binding domain and leucine-rich repeat proteins (NLRs) are key components of the plant innate immune system and typically detect the presence of isolate-specific avirulence (AVR) effectors from pathogens. NLR genes define the fastest-evolving gene family of flowering plants and are often arranged in gene clusters containing multiple paralogs, contributing to copy number and allele-specific NLR variation within a host species. Barley mildew resistance locus a (Mla) has been subject to extensive functional diversification, resulting in allelic resistance specificities each recognizing a cognate, but largely unidentified, AVR gene of the powdery mildew fungus, Blumeria graminis f.