S-PROTECT: Tissue-specific repression of S factor expression to enhance wheat disease resistance

小麦锈病被称为“农业小儿麻痹症”，因为它们对全世界的小麦生产构成威胁。由于欧洲种质中严重缺乏抗药性，以及关于杀菌剂抗药性和/或限制的问题，迫切需要制定替代战略来提高复原力。另一种可能更持久的策略是干扰编码易感因子的宿主基因(S)。病原菌以S因子为靶标，支持自身的建立或定植和/或调节寄主防御反应。因此，S因子的破坏可以导致易感性的根本丧失。在我们的ERC STG中，我们开发了一种新的策略来鉴定S因子，并发现了一系列支持小麦锈菌定殖的寄主基因。然而，S基因的突变会对产量或植物生长产生有害影响，这阻碍了许多有希望的S因子在植物育种中的开发利用。POC的这项提案将通过使用精确的转录调控来重点克服这一关键限制。我们将把这种方法发展成为评估S因子在小麦中表达的平台技术。此外，我们将利用我们在JIC的长期关系，与所有主要种子公司(包括跨国公司)一起评估这种方法的商业可行性。本发明还可能在小麦以外具有广泛的适用性，这一点将在项目期间通过确定我们之前描述的S因子的同源物以及在水稻、大豆、玉米、棉花和其他谷物中进行精确转录调控的策略来阐明。

Wheat rusts are known as the "polio of agriculture" due to the threat they pose to wheat production worldwide. With a severe lack of resistance in European germplasm and issues around fungicide resistance and/or restrictions there is an urgent need to develop alternative strategies to enhance resilience. One alternative and likely more durable strategy is to disrupt host genes that encode susceptibility (S) factors. Pathogens target S factors to support their own establishment or colonization and/or modulate host defence responses. Thus, S factor disruption can confer a fundamental loss of susceptibility. In our ERC STG we developed a novel strategy for identification of S factors and found a series of host genes that play essential roles in supporting wheat rust colonization. However, disruption of S genes can have deleterious effects on yield or plant growth, which has prevented exploitation of many promising S factors in plant breeding. This PoC proposal will focus on overcoming this critical limitation, by employing precision transcriptional regulation. We will develop this approach into a platform technology for assessing S factor expression in wheat. Furthermore, we will use our long-standing connections at JIC will all major seed companies (including multinationals) to assess the commercial viability of this approach. The invention may also have broad applicability beyond wheat, which will be clarified during the project by identifying homologs of our previously characterised S factors and a strategy for precision transcriptional regulation in rice, soybean, maize, cotton and other cereals.