Transfer and engineering of immune receptors to improve recognition capacities in crops

- Extracellular and intracellular receptors sense pathogen invasion to activate defence.
- Understanding of immune receptor functioning permits interfamily exploitation.
- Recombination of immune receptors may lead to novel recognition specificities.
- Engineering of effector targets may extend immune receptor recognition spectrum.
- Novel tools and strategies foster exploitation of immune receptors in crops.

Immune receptors are pivotal elements of the plant immune system that act as sentinels for microbial invasion. Knowingly or unknowingly, breeding for resistance has largely relied on the transfer of immune receptor recognition specificities between plant genotypes. For decades such transfers were limited to crossable species. However, advents in transgene technologies have allowed overcoming species barriers. Novel strategies for mining of recognition specificities, combined with our recently increased understanding of immune receptor functioning, allows to increase and alter recognition specificities, which should ultimately increase the spectrum of recognition specificities that are available to control plant diseases in crops.

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