Objective In nature, plants are challenged by disease-causing pathogens such as viruses, bacteria and fungi. Understanding mechanisms of plant disease and disease resistance is of fundamental importance to sustainable agriculture and human health. Unlike mammals, plants lack a circulating immune system. Plants instead rely on the innate immune capacity of each cell and systemic signals that disseminate from infection sites. Successful pathogens use effectors to suppress plant immunity and cause disease. Plants have evolved disease resistance genes encoding immune receptors that perceive specific pathogen effectors to mount effector-triggered immunity. In Arabidopsis, a heteromeric pair of intracellular immune receptors forms a functional recognition complex which senses virulence activities of two structurally unrelated bacterial effectors at the nuclear chromatin. Results suggest that effector targeting of histone modifications and chromatin remodelling interferes with host basal immunity and that this is transduced by the receptor pair to activation of defence pathways. The underlying molecular mechanisms remain unclear. We have found that the two bacterial effectors interact with an overlapping set of chromatin-associated proteins and with certain immune receptor domains. We hypothesize that the effectors converge on the same chromatin machinery for promoting disease and that their actions are intercepted by the immune receptor system which is physically connected to basal immunity signalling components. By using the effectors as molecular probes, this proposal aims to elucidate how the chromatin environment is modulated during infection and how effector perturbations are converted to effective immunity. Fields of science agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagriculturesustainable agriculturenatural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologybacteriologymedical and health scienceshealth sciencesinfectious diseasesmedical and health sciencesbasic medicineimmunologymedical and health sciencesbasic medicinepathology Keywords innate immunity pathogen effectors NLR receptors chromatin dynamics transcriptional regulation Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Main Programme H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility Topic(s) MSCA-IF-2015-EF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF-EF) Call for proposal H2020-MSCA-IF-2015 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF) Coordinator MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN EV Net EU contribution € 159 460,80 Address HOFGARTENSTRASSE 8 80539 Munchen Germany See on map Region Bayern Oberbayern München, Kreisfreie Stadt Activity type Research Organisations Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 159 460,80