Authors
Jiahui Nie, Lang Liu, Yetong Qi, Chengyu Zhu, Zeng Liu, Xinya Wu, Jing Zhou, Jie Wu, Meng Xu, Hongjun Li, Xinyuan Sun, Mingshuo Fan, Ruimin Yu, Huishan Qiu, Qingguo Sun, Shengxuan Liu, Paul R J Birch, Zhendong Tian
Published in
Science advances. Volume 12. Issue 38. Pages eaeh7029. Sep 18, 2026. Epub Sep 16, 2026.
Abstract
Potato late blight caused by Phytophthora infestans threatens global food security. Unlike the fact that most race-specific resistance to P. infestans (Rpi) genes is rapidly overcome by evolving pathogen populations, the R8 gene from Solanum demissum has conferred durable, quantitative resistance for nearly a century despite encoding a canonical coiled-coil-type nucleotide-binding, leucine-rich repeat (NLR) protein. We identified specific R8 gene analogs that act as negative modulators of R8-mediated immunity. These R8 gene analogs lack independent resistance functions but perturb the recognition of avirulence effector Avr8 by R8 and interfere with oligomerization and plasma membrane association of NRC2, a helper NLR essential for the R8 signaling pathway. Stable overexpression of such RGAs effectively compromises R8-mediated resistance in both potato and Nicotiana benthamiana. We propose that this endogenous regulation balances the intensity of R8-mediated immunity, likely reducing selection pressure on the pathogen population and prolonging resistance durability. Our findings reveal a regulatory layer where genetically linked RGAs control resistance (R) protein-mediated immunity, providing a conceptual framework for durable resistance breeding.
PMID:
42748256
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 17 Sep 2026.
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