The July 2020 Editor’s pick for MPMI is, “Phytophthora infestans AVR2 Effector Escapes R2 Recognition Through Effector Disordering,” in which Li-Na Yang and co-authors explore the role of intrinsic disorder in the development of pathogenicity in the RXLR AVR2 effector of P. infestans. Their results support the notion that intrinsic disorder is important for the effector function of pathogens and demonstrate that SLiM-mediated protein–protein interaction in the C-terminal effector domain might contribute greatly to the evasion of resistance-protein detection in P. infestans.

Phytophthora infestans AVR2 Effector Escapes R2 Recognition Through Effector Disordering

Name: Li-Na Yang

Current Position: Associate professor at the College of Plant Protection, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fujian, China.

Education: B.Sc. and Ph.D. in Plant Pathology at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fujian, China.

Non-scientific Interest: Traveling, walking, reading, gardening, and cooking.

Brief-bio: I am currently an associate professor at the College of Plant Protection, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University. I worked with Professor Jiasui Zhan for nearly 10 years on the population genetics, molecular genetics, and evolutionary ecology of the devastating potato pathogen Phytophthora infestans. I am interested in the effects of ecological (biotic or abiotic) factors on the evolutionary potential and trajectory of pathogen ecological and life history traits, such as fungicide resistance and pathogenicity governed by effector genes, etc. For biotic factors, my research mainly focuses on host diversification and host resistance. We find that compared with monoculture, the mixture of different potato cultivars significantly slows down the evolution of pathogenicity and fungicide resistance of P. infestans, and late blight epidemic in the field is also significantly reduced. This result has been used to guide commercial production of potato in the Yunan and Guizhou areas of Southwest China with great success. For abiotic factors, my research mainly focuses on the impacts of climate change, such as increasing atmosphere temperature and carbon dioxide, on the evolution of plant pathogens. We find temperature-mediated evolution of P. infestans in individual genes (e.g. effector genes) and at the organism level. In the laboratory, P. infestans can adapt to changed experimental temperature quickly, and the spatial differentiation of fungicide tolerance increases under elevated experimental temperatures. We also find that the pathogenicity of P. infestans significantly increases as carbon dioxide concentration increases. These results indicate late blight will become more difficult to control under future climate conditions of higher atmosphere temperatures and carbon dioxide concentrations.

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