Magnaporthe oryzae effectors utilized by the fungal plant pathogen to manipulate host resistance responses at different stages of the hemi-biotrophic infection process

为不断增长的世界人口提供粮食保障是本世纪全球面临的主要挑战之一。一般来说，作物产量不仅受到气候变化或自然灾害的威胁，而且还受到植物病原体的威胁，这些病原体具有完全破坏收成的能力。用化学品控制疾病的治疗费用昂贵，因此不适用于全世界，而且可能以不可预见的方式影响环境。因此，保证可靠收成的理想方法是为植物提供一种自然抵御病原体攻击的遗传结构。要产生这样的智能植物，深入了解病原体致病的分子要求是必不可少的。该项目将通过分析真菌植物病原体稻瘟病菌（Magnaporthe oryzae）来解决这个重要问题。这种病原体能够破坏每年的水稻收成，否则这些收成可以养活6000万人。1 .植物病原体的科学/经济重要性（Dean et al., 2012）。m.o ryzae的生命周期相当复杂，包括不同的阶段，真菌最初以活的宿主组织为食，但后来产生毒素导致宿主细胞死亡。这种感染策略被称为半生物营养。尽管经过近20年的研究，这种微生物在其寄主植物上的感染过程在分子水平上仍未完全了解。我们的目标是在一个综合的方法，包括病原体的所有感染阶段的分析缩小这一差距。这一雄心勃勃的项目将基于来自德国和中国的两个提出建议的研究实验室的长期专业知识来实现，他们将联合起来对抗全球威胁。越来越明显的是，病原体分泌的小分子，即所谓的效应物，破坏了宿主的防御机制，使植物容易被病原体定植。这是通过效应物与宿主蛋白的相互作用介导的，这是建立抗性反应所必需的。Schaffrath和zhang的实验室都成功地发现和表征了M. oryzae效应物。到目前为止，两者都主要集中在病原体发展的特定阶段，因此只能提供整个效应图的快照。旨在提供全局视图，实际提案解决了整个殖民化阶段的影响，即渗透，生物营养和坏死性发展。这将为以知识为基础的新一代智能工厂铺平道路。

Food securing for an ever growing word population is one of the main global challenges in our century. Generally, crop yield is not only threatened by climate change or natural catastrophes but also by plant pathogens which have the capacity to completely destroy the harvest. Treatments with chemicals to control diseases are expensive and thus not applicable throughout the world and in addition might impact the environment in an unforeseeable fashion. Therefore an ideal way to guarantee reliable harvests would be to provide plants with a genetic constitution to naturally withstand pathogen attack. To generate such smart plants an in-depth knowledge of the molecular requirements of pathogens to cause disease is essential.The proposed project will address this important issue by analyzing the fungal plant pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae. This pathogen is capable to destroy each year rice harvests that otherwise could have feed 60-million people and was ranked as the no. 1 plant pathogen for its scientific/economic importance (Dean et al., 2012). The life-cycle of M. oryzae is rather complicated encompassing different stages in which the fungus initially feed from living host tissue but later-on produces toxins leading to host cell death. This infection strategy is referred to a hemi-biotrophy. Despite roughly 20 years of research, the infection process of the microbe on its host plant is not fully understood at the molecular level. We aimed at closing this gap in an integrated approach encompassing the analyses of all infection stages of the pathogen. This ambitious project will be realized based on the long-standing expertise of the two proposing research labs from Germany and China who will join their forces to fight against a global threat.What is becoming increasingly apparent is the involvement of small molecules, so-called effectors, secreted by pathogens which sabotage the host defense machinery, in making plants accessible for colonization by the pathogen. This is mediated by interaction of the effectors with host proteins necessary for mounting resistance responses. The Schaffrath- and the Zhang-labs both have successfully worked on the discovery and characterization of M. oryzae effectors. So far both have concentrated mostly on particular stages of pathogen development, thereby being able to provide only a snap-shot of the whole effector picture. Aiming at providing the global view, the actual proposal addresses the effectome across all stage of colonization, i.e. penetration, biotrophic and necrotrophic development. This will pave the way to a knowledge-based generation of smart plants.