Project description
TIR proteins for climate-ready crops
Plant diseases pose a major risk to agricultural production. They cause crop losses and threaten food security. Climate change is worsening this challenge by increasing the frequency and severity of outbreaks while also weakening plants’ natural immune defences. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the Plant-RISE project aims to explore how plant immune proteins known as TIR domains function under high-temperature conditions. It will compare traditional immune receptors with non-canonical TIR proteins that may remain active under heat stress. Using confocal microscopy, proteomics and protein biochemistry, the project will study how these proteins behave and interact in Arabidopsis. The aim is to uncover their mechanisms and explore their potential for engineering heat-resilient plant immunity and more climate-resilient crops.
Objective
Currently, plant diseases significantly reduce crop yield in agriculture, posing a substantial societal and economic threat globally. Moreover, climate change is intensifying the incidence and severity of plant diseases. Plant disease resistance is largely mediated by intracellular NLR immune receptors, which detect pathogen effectors and activate defence pathways. However, NLR function is often compromised at elevated temperatures, limiting their effectiveness under temperature stress. In contrast, recent work has shown that signalling TIR (Toll/Interleukin-1 receptor) domains isolated from NLRs and naturally occurring non-canonical TIR-containing proteins (ncTIRs) can retain immune signalling activity even under heat stress. These proteins may represent a novel class of immune components with temperature-resilient properties, but the molecular mechanisms behind their function and thermotolerance remain poorly understood.
This project aims at dissecting how canonical and ncTIR domains operate under elevated temperature conditions. To address this question, I have designed a multidisciplinary project that will be carried out in the lab of Dr. Maud Bernoux (LIPME), an expert in the field of plant immunity and TIR signalling. Using a combination of confocal microscopy, proximity proteomics, and protein biochemistry, I will explore the functional diversity of TIR proteins in Arabidopsis and dissect the molecular mechanisms that regulate these proteins. Importantly, I will investigate the impact of high temperatures on these mechanisms to bring novel insights in the potential of TIRs for engineering robust plant immunity and enhancing crop resilience in a warming world.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules proteins proteomics
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries agriculture
- natural sciences physical sciences optics microscopy confocal microscopy
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences atmospheric sciences climatology climatic changes
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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75007 Paris
France
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