FINE-TUNING CROP RESILIENCE BY CHARACTERIZING PLANT IMMUNE RESPONSE-INDUCED TARGETED PROTEIN DEGRADATION

The overarching goal of this project is to identify loci of interest for genetic editing to increase crop disease resistance by 1) identifying E3 ubiquitin ligase/E3 ubiquitin ligase substrates that are involved in plant immunity, and 2) elucidating the molecular mechanisms that regulate E3-mediated degradation of immune receptors. In the long term, this will enable more informed editing of genetic loci to produce crops with effective and long-lasting pathogen resistance, in addition to significantly enhancing our understanding of the plant ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS). To achieve this goal, the following objectives will be undertaken:1.1 - Profile E3 interactomes during effector-triggered immunity1.2 - Functional characterization of candidate E3s and substrates in ETI deployment2.1 - Characterize the molecular mechanism(s) underpinning SNIPER1/2-mediated NLR immune receptor degradation2.2 - Functionally characterize putative SNIPER homologs in a broad range of plant species