Tzion Fahima

Apr 9, 2024 | nature.com | Miaomiao Li |Jingzhong Xie |Yiwen Li |Tzion Fahima |Lingli Dong |Yusheng Zhao

AbstractCrop wild relatives offer natural variations of disease resistance for crop improvement. Here, we report the isolation of broad-spectrum powdery mildew resistance gene Pm36, originated from wild emmer wheat, that encodes a tandem kinase with a transmembrane domain (WTK7-TM) through the combination of map-based cloning, PacBio SMRT long-read genome sequencing, mutagenesis, and transformation.

May 22, 2023 | nature.com | Tzion Fahima |Gitta Coaker

Two studies describe kinase fusion proteins (KFPs) that regulate the perception and deception of wheat pathogens. These highlight the emergence of KFPs as plant immune regulators and emphasize the importance of crop wild relatives as a reservoir for resistance breeding and global food security. Plants have evolved an innate immune system comprised of germline-encoded immune receptors that can recognize all pathogen classes.