BBSRC Institute Strategic Programme: Advancing Plant Health (APH) Partner Grant

面对气候紧急情况，以可持续的方式养活世界，是人类在21世纪面临的主要挑战之一。尽管采取了广泛的干预措施，我们全球主要农作物每年仍有高达30%的产量因病虫害而损失。如果我们能够防止这些损失--它们每年给全球经济造成5400亿美元的损失。-它将对确保全球粮食安全产生重大影响。先进的植物健康(APH)研究所战略计划(ISP)将研究支撑植物与病原体和害虫以及有益微生物相互作用的分子机制。我们将建立在我们对植物免疫系统、微生物发病机制、昆虫寄生和共生的最新发现，以及在结构生物学、机器学习、基因组学和先进生物成像方面的最新进展的基础上。我们的目标是预测性地操纵植物免疫，从而保护作物免受当前和新出现的疾病和寄生虫的侵袭。我们还将利用有益微生物的潜力来促进植物生长，使植物能够获得固定的氮，并确保植物健康。在气候紧急情况下，所获得的新知识将用于提高作物复原力和可持续农业生产力。APH是在与工业界、植物育种者和种植者协商后开发的，因此它解决了农业最紧迫的需求。APH的重点之一是增强植物免疫力，以保护作物。植物具有多层免疫系统，但病原体已经进化出逃避检测和抑制免疫的能力。我们将发现和开发植物抗病的新来源，重点关注英国农业中的尖锐问题，如甘蓝茎跳甲和蚜虫，以及迫切需要遗传形式抗性的豆类疾病，以及主要作物疾病，如马铃薯晚疫病和谷物锈病。同时，我们的目标是确定植物免疫受体如何识别病原体并激活植物防御，从而能够设计新的抗病基因，这些基因可以通过精确育种来部署。我们还将致力于了解病原体和害虫是如何入侵和定居农作物的。我们将定义微生物病原体和昆虫的发育和生理过程，使它们能够感染植物寄主。我们将确定这些功能是如何受到遗传调控的，并确定病原体效应蛋白所针对的植物蛋白，以便我们能够了解病原体如何抑制免疫。我们还将调查其他疾病易感因素的作用。同时，我们将调查微生物与植物之间的有益互动。显然，与农作物相关的微生物群落对它们的健康至关重要。微生物参与了互惠共生，例如，为豆类提供固定的氮素，增强根部吸收养分和抵御干旱条件的能力。不同的机制，使微生物能够安慰植物细胞和组织，以及进化关系将被探索。我们的目标是了解环境变化和化学应用如何影响环境中的微生物种群，并利用这一知识发展微生物群落，以促进植物在有害条件下的生长并增强对疾病的抵抗力。最后，我们将利用这些知识来促进持久的疾病控制。我们将与业界和国际合作伙伴合作，制定应对新出现的疾病威胁的新战略，例如，在英国和国际上部署马铃薯、大米、小麦、甘蓝和豌豆的持久抗病基因组合。综合考虑，APH将基于对植物-微生物/害虫相互作用的详细了解，为可持续地提高植物健康和作物生产力提供多方面的战略。

Feeding the world in a sustainable way, in the face of the climate emergency, represents one of the major challenges for humankind in the 21st Century. Up to 30% of the yield of our major global crops is lost each year to diseases and pests, despite extensive interventions. If we could prevent these losses- which cost the global economy $540 billion p.a. -it would have a major impact on ensuring global food security. The Advancing Plant Health (APH) Institute Strategic Programme (ISP) will investigate the molecular mechanisms that underpin interactions of plants with pathogens and pests, as well as beneficial microbes. We will build upon recent breakthrough discoveries in our understanding of the plant immune system, microbial pathogenesis, insect parasitism and symbiosis, as well as recent advances in structural biology, machine learning, genomics and advanced bioimaging. We aim to predictively manipulate plant immunity so crops can be protected against current and emerging diseases and parasites. We will also harness the potential of beneficial microbes to enhance plant growth, enable plants to acquire fixed nitrogen, and ensure plant health. New knowledge gained will be used to enhance crop resilience and sustainable agricultural productivity in the context of the climate emergency. APH has been developed in consultation with industry, plant breeders and growers, so that it addresses the most pressing needs of agriculture.One focus of APH is to enhance plant immunity to protect crops. Plants have a multi-layered immune system, but pathogens have evolved the ability to evade detection and suppress immunity. We will discover and exploit novel sources of plant disease resistance, focusing on acute problems in UK agriculture such as cabbage stem flea beetle and aphids, as well as legume diseases, where genetic forms of resistance are urgently needed, and major crop diseases such as potato late blight and cereal rusts. In parallel, we aim to determine how plant immune receptors recognise pathogens and activate plant defence, enabling the ability to design new disease resistance genes that can be deployed through precision breeding. We will also aim to understand how pathogens and pests invade and colonise crop plants. We will define developmental and physiological processes in microbial pathogens and insects that allow them to infect plant hosts. We will determine how these functions are genetically regulated and identify the plant proteins targeted by pathogen effector proteins so we can understand how pathogens suppress immunity. We will also investigate the role of other disease susceptibility factors.In parallel, we will investigate beneficial interactions of microbes with plants. It is clear that the microbial community associated with crop plants is critical to their health. Microbes take part in mutualistic symbioses, for example, providing fixed nitrogen to legumes and enhancing the ability of roots to take up nutrients and withstand drought conditions. The diverse mechanisms that enable microbial consolation of plant cells and tissues will be explored, as well as evolutionary relationships. We aim to understand how environmental changes and chemical applications affect microbial populations in the environment and use this knowledge to develop microbial communities that can enhance plant growth in detrimental conditions and confer resistance to disease. Finally, we will deploy this knowledge to facilitate durable disease control. Working with industry and international collaborators we will devise new strategies to combat emerging disease threats, deploying durable combinations of disease resistance genes in potato, rice, wheat, Brassica and pea, for example, working in the UK as well as internationally. When considered together, APH will provide a multi-faceted strategy for sustainably enhancing plant health and crop productivity based on a detailed understanding of plant-microbe/pest interactions.