Revealing interplay between antiviral immunity and recessive resistance in plants

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K14434
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 38060:Applied molecular and cellular biology-related
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Hashimoto Masayoshi 東京大学, 大学院農学生命科学研究科(農学部), 助教 (20615273)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: 植物ウイルス / 劣性抵抗性 / 植物免疫

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Plants deploy multiple innate immune systems against RNA viruses. Although recent studies suggested the interplay among the anti-viral immune systems, the molecular mechanisms of such interplay remain elusive. This study aims to reveal the molecular function of a plant factor governing recessive immunity, also referred to as recessive resistance, and thereby to understand the interplay between recessive immunity and other anti-viral immune systems. As results, we successfully isolated several plant factors which interacts with the recessive immune factor, some of which implied a molecular rink between recessive immunity and nonsense-mediated decay (NMD) immunity. Moreover, the results demonstrated that upregulation of plant hormone-mediated immunity is dispensable for the impairment of viral accumulation in recessive immunity, suggesting that recessive immunity against a plant virus may affect other innate immune systems targeting other plant pathogenic microbes than viruses.

Free Research Field

植物微生物相互作用

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

植物ウイルスの防除法の一つに、植物の抗ウイルス免疫を利用した抵抗性育種がある。なかでも、劣性免疫は一部のウイルス種の防除に利用されているが、その適用範囲は限定的である。本研究では、研究代表者らが特定した新たな劣性免疫因子について、抵抗性育種への応用可能性を検討するため、植物が持つ複数の抗ウイルス免疫への影響を調べた。また、劣性免疫因子は、植物細胞内でウイルスが増殖する際に利用する宿主因子という側面を持つ。本研究により、劣性免疫がウイルス以外の他の病原体に対する免疫機構に影響する可能性を明らかするとともに、ウイルス増殖における宿主因子の機能について基礎的な知見を得た。