2025-04-11 中国科学院(CAS)
Decode natural resistance against citrus greening disease and Develop AI-designed disease treatment (Image by Prof. YE Jian’s group)
<関連情報>
- https://english.cas.cn/newsroom/research_news/life/202504/t20250411_1040967.shtml
- https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq7203
標的化MYC2の安定化により柑橘類の黄龍病抵抗性が付与される Targeted MYC2 stabilization confers citrus Huanglongbing resistance
Pingzhi Zhao, Huan Yang, Yanwei Sun, Jingyin Zhang, […], and Jian Ye
Science Published:10 Apr 2025
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adq7203
Editor’s summary
Citrus plantations are being attacked worldwide by a bacterial disease called Huanglongbing or citrus greening. Zhao et al. identified an immune protein, MYC2, which is degraded by the E3 ubiquitin ligase PUB21. Citrus species and their relatives vary in resistance to Huanglongbing depending on the allele of PUB21 and on variations in MYC2-binding sites in the PUB21 promoter. The authors elucidated how a regulatory circuit between PUB21 expression and MYC2 stability confers Huanglongbing resistance. Using an artificial intelligence screening tool, the authors identified microbial peptides that could inhibit proteolysis. They narrowed down the selection to a single small peptide that stabilized MYC2 and reduced disease symptoms when applied to citrus trees. The work offers a mechanistically derived approach to fighting a devastating plant disease (see the Perspective by Opachaloemphan and He). —Madeleine Seale
Abstract
Huanglongbing (HLB) is a devastating citrus disease. In this work, we report an HLB resistance regulatory circuit in Citrus composed of an E3 ubiquitin ligase, PUB21, and its substrate, the MYC2 transcription factor, which regulates jasmonate-mediated defense responses. A helitron insertion in the PUB21 promoter introduced multiple MYC2-binding cis-elements to create a regulatory circuit linking the PUB21 activity with MYC2 degradation. Ectopic expression of a natural dominant-negative PUB21 paralog discovered in distant Citrus relatives stabilized MYC2 and conferred resistance to HLB. Antiproteolysis peptides (APPs), identified by artificial intelligence, stabilized MYC2 by binding and inhibiting PUB21 activity. A 14–amino acid peptide, APP3-14, molecularly controlled HLB in greenhouse and field trials. This approach represents a strategy to combat uncultivable pathogens through targeted disease resistance protein stabilization.
