[1S01a] 10. ASPIRE - Part 2

3:45 PM - 4:00 PM JST(6:45 AM - 7:00 AM UTC)

[1ASPR-13] Systematic discovery and engineering of synthetic immune receptors in plants

○Ken Shirasu¹ (1. RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (Japan))

Keywords:

immune receptor,synthetic design,pathogen perception

Plants deploy a diverse array of pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), which perceive microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs) to activate immune responses. Leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinase subgroup Ⅻ (LRR-RLK-Ⅻ) represents one of the largest PRR families due to lineage-specific diversification. Here, we describe a strategy to map the recognition landscape of LRR-RLK-Ⅻs in plants, paving the way for the discovery of novel PRRs that can be synthetically engineered for improving disease resistance. Through bioinformatics and synthetic biology approaches, we characterized LRR-RLK-Ⅻs from 285 plant species and identified a receptor, ″SCORE″, that perceives cold-shock protein (CSP) peptides. SCORE orthologs from multiple angiosperm lineages exhibit CSP recognition polymorphisms, indicating recurrent selection for pathogen recognition through substitutions at key amino acid residues. Through functional phylogenomics and protein structure predictions, we engineered SCORE variants capable of detecting multiple phytopathogen CSP peptides, thus revealing the diverse PRR recognition landscape in plants. Our strategy holds promise for engineering plant immune receptors, particularly for perennial crops.