Diversity of Disease Resistance Mechanism in Arabodopsis.

In response to pathogen attack plants activate complex cellular reprogramming that leads to the induction of a broad spectrum of defences.
While much progress has been made in understanding the mechanisms by which plants detect and defend themselves against particular microbes, there has been scant investigation of the potentially rich diversity of resistance traits generated through intra-specific recombination of genomes.
These traits are likely to constitute the predominant form of natural disease resistance in the field in which a balance has to be maintained between activation of energy costly defences and the demands of growth, reproduction and effective competition with other species.
In DILEMA we aimed to investigate the phenotypic variation of selected geographical accessions, recombinant inbred (RI) populations and defence signalling mutants of the model species, Arabidopsis, to define regulatory steps in resistance to multiple pathogen types.
The project framework was designed to integrate information on plant defence responses at the levels of global gene transcription, mRNA translation and key post-translational events and/or regulatory protein activities. Knowledge derived from these studies should provide new biotechnological tools to control plant diseases that remain the most costly and growth limiting factors in agricultural production and food supply.