Transcript Molecular and Genetic Dissection of Plant Defense Reactions

Molecular and Genetic Dissection of
Plant Defense Reactions
‫ביוטכנולוגיה לעמידות יתר בצמחים‬
Dr. Adi Avni
‫דרר' עדי אבני‬
Britannia, Room 628, Tel: 03- 6409840; E-mail: [email protected]
Research
Associate
Silvi Shuster
Graduate
Students
Mily Ron
Yael Gross
Plant resistance against disease involves inducible defense
mechanisms. One aspect of the plant defense response is the induction
of programmed cell death known as hypersensitive response (HR). Our
research focuses on understanding the signal transduction pathway by
which a fungal protein elicitor induces ethylene biosynthesis,
programmed cell death and other plant defense responses. We address
this question from several angles: We use genetic approach to isolate
the plant gene controlling the plant response to the fungal protein by
positional cloning (map based cloning) and microarray (chip
technology). The biological function of the isolated genes is been
analyzed in transgenic plants. Promoter deletion analysis performed in
tomato allowed us to identify the proximal region essential for
induction of ethylene biosynthesis by the fungal protein. Using this cis
element, we isolated a tomato cysteine protease-like protein that binds
to the promoter and, in a transient expression assay, activates the gene.
Currently we are studing the role of this cysteine protase and the small
ubiquitin-related modifier protein (T-SUMO) of tomato in controlling
ethylene biosynthesis. Programmed cell death plays an essential role in
plant defense responses.
We are studying the mechanism of
programmed cell death using a proteomics approach. Our long-term
goals are to generate plants that show high resistance to pathogens
using biotechnological tools.
Recent publications:Ron
M., et al. A. High-resolution
linkage analysis and physical
characterization of the EIXresponding locus in tomato.
Theor. Appl. Genet. 100,
2000 (pp. 184-189). Elbaz
M, et al. Constitutive
caspase-like machinery
executes programmed cell
death in plant cells Cell
Death Diff 9, 2002 (pp. 726733)