Recently, the Prof. Hada-led research team with IMU’s Key Laboratory of Herbage & Endemic Crop Biology, Ministry of Education, has published the research paper titled “A cluster of atypical resistance genes in soybean confers broad-spectrum antiviral activity” in Plant Physiology –an internationally known journal for phytology. PhD candidate Yan Ting and MA candidates Zhou Zikai and Wang Ru are the first authors of the article. The research is completed with the fund from the projects under the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Scientific and Technological Plan(grant numbers: 2020GG0045, 201802061), the National Natural Science Foundation of China(grant number: 31570142), Natural Science Foundation of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region(grant number: 2017MS0330) and the project of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Foundation for Innovation (grant number: KCBJ2018001).

Glycine max is an important legume crop. Inner Mongolia is one main soybean-producing area and plays a key role in the development of soybean industry in China. Soybean mosaic virus(SMV) is a severe pathogen for soybeans. The way to strengthen the capabilities of soybeans to resist pathogens and that to increase the output of soybeans are very important problems to be addressed. The use of the technological research in modern molecular biology and breeding of antiviral soybeans are the ways to solve the problems. In this research, the team characterizes a soybean SMV resistance cluster (SRC) that comprises five resistance (R) genes. SRC1 encodes a Toll/interleukin-1 receptor and nucleotide-binding site (TIR-NBS [TN]) protein, SRC4 and SRC6 encode TIR proteins with a short EF-hand domain, while SRC7 and SRC8 encode TIR-NBS-X (TNX) proteins with a noncanonical basic secretory protein (BSP) domain at their C-termini. SRC7 possesses broad-spectrum antiviral activity toward several plant viruses including SMV, plum pox virus, potato virus Y, and tobacco mosaic virus. In the research, the team characterizes the functional domain of SRC7 and illustrates the regulatory mechanism at transcriptional and post transcriptional levels. Now there are many reports about single functioning resistance gene. However, there are a few reports about coordinating functioning of multiple resistance genes in the form of loci. As a result, the team will focus on the analysis of the coordinating mechanism for multiple resistance genes and their genetic variations in its subsequent research, which is scientifically significant.

Besides, the research team led by Hada has also published in Viruses-a mainstream journal for virology- another research paper titled " Expression of an Antiviral Gene GmRUN1 from Soybean Is Regulated via Intron-Mediated Enhancement (IME)". Diao Peng, a PhD candidate, is the first author of the paper.

URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/plphys/kiab507