Chinese female scientist Dong Xinnian, academician, released important immune results

Leading this research is Professor Xinnian Dong, a well-known Chinese female scientist at Duke University. He graduated from Wuhan University in the early years, completed postdoctoral research at Harvard University, and was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2012. Academician Dong Xinnian's main research direction is salicylic acid and jasmonic acid-mediated signal transduction pathways and their interaction mechanisms.

In 2008, Professor Dong Xinnian led the research team to study the changes of immune-related redox equilibrium state, and found out the signal regulation mechanism, which provides important information for further understanding the relationship between redox equilibrium state and immune response. The findings were published in the journal Sciecne.

In 2009, Professor Dong Xinnian demonstrated the important role of NPR1 protein in the transcriptional regulation of target genes in Cell. It was confirmed that NPR1 protein plays a dual role in systemic acquired resistance (SAR) and regulates the immune response of plants.

In 2012, the Dong Xinnian team of the Duke University Department of Biology identified NPR1 paralogs NPR3 and NPR4 as receptors for the plant's important immune signal salicylic acid. Related papers are published in the journal Nature.

In 2015, Professor Dong led the researchers to reveal how the two biological clocks work together to help plants cope with indirect needs such as fungal infections while complying with the schedule of full daily growth activities. And identified a gene that perceives a clock "tick" disorder, thereby causing another clock to line up the schedule. Their research was published in the journal Nature.

Plants form a complex immune defense system in the process of co-evolution with pathogenic microorganisms. The innate immune system of plants is roughly divided into two levels. The first level of immunity is based on the recognition of pathogen-associated molecular patterns by cell surface-based pattern recognition receptors, which are called pathogen-associated molecular pattern-triggered immunity (PTI) and help plants resist most pathogenic microorganisms.

The second level of immunity starts inside the cell and relies mainly on the protein product encoded by the disease resistance gene to directly or indirectly recognize the effector secreted by the pathogenic microorganism and stimulate the defense response to counteract the pathogens that can suppress the first level of immunity using the effector. Microorganisms, a process called effector-triggered immunity (ETI). ETI is often accompanied by hypersensitivity (HR), also known as programmed cell death (PCD).

 

 

In this Cell article, the researchers report that the immune protein CPR5, which plays a key inhibitory role in plant ETI and PCD, is a novel transmembrane nuclear pore protein that is a component of nuclear pore complex (NPC). . CPR5 limits signal nuclear transport through the NPC selective barrier, isolating CKIs associated with ETI signaling. When activated by an immunoreceptor, CPR5 undergoes a conformational transition of the oligomer to the monomer, which results in ETI release and NPC permeabilization, resetting the selective barrier to allow nuclear signal cargo to flow through the NPC in large quantities.

Therefore, these coordinated NPC activities lead to the simultaneous activation of multiple stress-related signaling pathways, which constitute an important regulatory mechanism for the specific induction of ETI/PCD.