The seminars take place on the Montpellier Institut Agro/INRAE Campus of La Gaillarde (2, place P. Viala Montpellier)

Thusday june 19 14h, Amphi 208

Insight into the molecular dialogue between plants and pathogenic fungi from the investigation of rice blast disease

Thomas Kroj

Plant Health Institute Montpellier, INRAE, Campus International de Baillarguet, Montpellier, France

Blast disease caused by the fungus Pyricularia oryzae (syn. Magnaporthe oryzae) is one of the most devastating rice diseases and a model system for understanding the interaction between plants and pathogenic fungi. My group is interested in the molecular dialogue between P. oryzae and rice and studies for this aim effectors of the fungus and immune receptors of the plant. In my presentation, I will show our recent work on the MAX (Magnaporthe AVRs and ToxB like) effectors that form an extended and structurally conserved family in the blast fungus. In addition, I will talk about the insight into the action of paired nucleotide-binding and leucine-rich immune receptors (NLRs) we gained from the study of the RGA4/RGA5 pair from rice and present work on the the allele-specific recognition of the P. oryzae effector AVR-Pita by the unconventional rice resistance protein Ptr.