Home

On March 28, the Plant Immunity Team headed by Researcher Liu Zhiyong of the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with Li Jing, a young teacher of BUA, among others, published a research paper titled A Wheat Tandem Kinase and NLR Pair Confers Resistance to Multiple Fungal Pathogens in Science. The paper revealed a brand-new immune mechanism by which a tandem kinase resists the invasion of fungal pathogen: an atypical NLR protein, WTN1 (Wheat Tandem NBD 1), pairs with the tandem kinase WTK3 to jointly recognize the effector proteins of pathogenic bacteria and trigger an immune response, exhibiting resistance to a variety of wheat fungal pathogens. The research has redefined the understanding of tandem kinases’ mechanism of action in this field, uncovered a new paradigm for the cooperation between tandem kinases and traditional NLRs in resisting diseases. It also filled the gap in the immune regulation pathway of plant tandem kinases, and established both theoretical and applied foundations for the precise design of crop varieties with broad-spectrum, multi-pathogen resistance.