Dr. Thomas A. DeFalco Western University Deciphering and engineering kinase-mediated responses to stress in plants Plants must constantly survey their environment to respond to environmental perturbations. Toward this end, plants deploy receptor kinases (RKs) at the cell surface, which allow them to sense and respond to external cues while coordinating growth and development. Many RKs have been characterized as pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), which activate pattern-triggered immunity (PTI) upon perception of non- or altered-self elicitor molecules. Intensive study of model PRRs and PTI has led to an emerging paradigm wherein activated RK complexes trigger downstream signalling via activation of cytosolic kinases. These kinases in turn function to execute downstream signalling through the direct phosphorylation and regulation of diverse substrate proteins. I will discuss our work using a key immune-regulating kinase as a molecular probe to resolve the PTI signalling pathway, as well as how such knowledge can be applied to engineer immune responses. I will also discuss how such approaches may be applied to other, non-immune pathways, and how this relates to specificity in cell signalling.
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