Elucidation of the mechanisme of specific recognition between rice and rice blast

在病原体和宿主之间，攻击和反击对相关生物施加了强烈的相互选择，导致了军备竞赛进化动力学的发展。 在这里，我们表明，稻瘟病菌无毒基因AVR-Pik和同源水稻抗性（R-）基因Pik是高度可变的多个等位基因不同的DNA替换引起氨基酸的变化。 不同的Pik等位基因对AVR-Pik等位基因有较强的识别特异性。 我们发现AVR-Pik在酵母双杂交试验和植物内免疫共沉淀试验中与Pik的N末端卷曲螺旋（CC）结构域物理结合。 这种结合特异性与AVR和R基因之间的识别特异性相关。 我们认为AVR-Pik和Pik被锁定在军备竞赛共同进化中，这是由它们的直接物理相互作用驱动的。

Between pathogen and host, attack and counter-attack impose strong reciprocal selection on the involved organisms, leading to the development of arms race evolutionary dynamics. Here we show that Magnaporthe oryzae avirulence gene AVR-Pik and cognate rice resistance (R-) gene Pik are highly variable with multiple alleles differing by DNA replacements causing amino acid changes. There is a tight recognition specificity of AVR-Pik alleles by different Pik alleles. We found that AVR-Pik physically binds the N-terminal coiled-coil (CC) domain of Pik in yeast 2-hybrid assay as well as in in-planta co-immunoprecipitation assay. This binding specificity correlates the recognition specificity between AVR and R-genes. We propose that AVR-Pik and Pik are locked up in arms race co-evolution that is driven by their direct physical interactions.