Beat Keller

Last updated
Beat Keller
Born (1958-09-14) September 14, 1958 (age 65)
Known fordisease resistance in cereals, wheat genome sequencing
Scientific career
Fields molecular biology, botany, wheat
Institutions University of Zurich

Beat Keller (born September 14 1958 in Interlaken) is a Swiss molecular biologist and professor of plant molecular biology at the University of Zurich. He is known for his research on disease resistance in cereals.

Contents

Life

Keller studied biology at the University of Basel from 1978 to 1982. His dissertation dealt with shape-determining proteins of the bacteriophage capsid T4: The role of gene products 67 and 68. In 1985 he began a postdoctoral fellowship at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel. In 1986, he continued his training as a molecular biologist with an EMBO Longterm Fellowship at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, where he worked in the plant biology research group of Christopher John Lamb. In 1989, Keller returned to Switzerland and founded a plant biotechnology group at the Swiss Federal Research Station for Agronomy (today Agroscope). The group, which specialized in cereal genetics, disease resistance and molecular markers, was headed by Keller until 1997. In 1995, he became a lecturer at ETH Zurich and in 1997 accepted an appointment as Professor of Molecular Plant Biology at the University of Zurich. From 1997 to 2014, he was Director of the Institute of Plant Biology at the University of Zurich and from 2002 to 2006 and from 2016 to 2018 Chairman of the Department of Biology. [1] From 2000 to 2006, Keller was Vice President of the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT) and is codirector of the research program "Evolution in Action". [2] From 2014 to 2022, he was a member of the Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation. [3] He is a member of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, India, and was admitted as a member of the section Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina on June 23, 2015.

Scientific contribution

Beat Keller's research focuses on the molecular basis of disease resistance in the cereals wheat, maize, barley and rye. This involves characterizing genes that are responsible for the formation of specific immune receptors. This included the isolation of the first resistance genes against fungal diseases in wheat [4] [5] and against leaf spot disease in maize. [6] In 2021, novel resistance genes were identified in wheat against powdery mildew and wheat leaf rust. [7] [8] [9] In addition, an important quantitative resistance gene, Lr34, was isolated, which is used intensively in wheat cultivation worldwide and has a novel resistance mechanism. [10] [11] Modified resistance genes were tested in field trials (www.protectedsite.ch) in transgenic wheat and barley plants. [12]

In complementary research directions, the molecular mechanisms of the evolution of the powdery mildew pathogen in its adaptation to new host species were identified and the molecules of the pathogen recognized by immune receptors were characterized. [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] The work on the wheat genome within the framework of the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium [18] led to the production of the first high-quality wheat genome sequence. [19]

Publications

See also

Wheat: Disease resistance

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Powdery mildew</span> Fungal plant disease

Powdery mildew is a fungal disease that affects a wide range of plants. Powdery mildew diseases are caused by many different species of ascomycete fungi in the order Erysiphales. Powdery mildew is one of the easier plant diseases to identify, as the signs of the causal pathogen are quite distinctive. Infected plants display white powdery spots on the leaves and stems. This mycelial layer may quickly spread to cover all of the leaves. The lower leaves are the most affected, but the mildew can appear on any above-ground part of the plant. As the disease progresses, the spots get larger and denser as large numbers of asexual spores are formed, and the mildew may spread up and down the length of the plant.

<i>Magnaporthe grisea</i> Blast, fungal disease of rice & wheat

Magnaporthe grisea, also known as rice blast fungus, rice rotten neck, rice seedling blight, blast of rice, oval leaf spot of graminea, pitting disease, ryegrass blast, Johnson spot, neck blast, wheat blast and Imochi (稲熱), is a plant-pathogenic fungus and model organism that causes a serious disease affecting rice. It is now known that M. grisea consists of a cryptic species complex containing at least two biological species that have clear genetic differences and do not interbreed. Complex members isolated from Digitaria have been more narrowly defined as M. grisea. The remaining members of the complex isolated from rice and a variety of other hosts have been renamed Magnaporthe oryzae, within the same M. grisea complex. Confusion on which of these two names to use for the rice blast pathogen remains, as both are now used by different authors.

<i>Uncinula necator</i> Species of fungus

Uncinula necator is a fungus that causes powdery mildew of grape. It is a common pathogen of Vitis species, including the wine grape, Vitis vinifera. The fungus is believed to have originated in North America. European varieties of Vitis vinifera are more or less susceptible to this fungus. Uncinula necator infects all green tissue on the grapevine, including leaves and young berries. It can cause crop loss and poor wine quality if untreated. The sexual stage of this pathogen requires free moisture to release ascospores from its cleistothecia in the spring. However, free moisture is not needed for secondary spread via conidia; high atmospheric humidity is sufficient. Its anamorph is called Oidium tuckeri.

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<i>Blumeria graminis</i> Fungal pathogen of grasses

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Powdery scab</span> Disease of potatoes

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<i>Thinopyrum intermedium</i> Species of flowering plant

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plant disease resistance</span> Ability of a plant to stand up to trouble

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<i>Triticum carthlicum</i> Species of grass

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Catherine Feuillet is a French geneticist who is currently the Chief Scientific Officer of Inari Agriculture, a Cambridge MA based biotechnology company. Feuillet earned a PhD in plant molecular biology on the isolation and characterization of genes involved in wood formation in eucalyptus trees. She started to work on the genetics of disease resistance in wheat in 1994 during her post-doctoral studies at the Swiss Federal Institute for Agroecology. She then moved as a junior group leader to the University of Zurich where she investigated the molecular basis of fungal disease resistance in wheat and in barley and cloned the first leaf rust resistance gene from wheat. In 2004 she was hired as a research director at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) in France to lead European and international projects on wheat genomics.

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References

  1. Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Zürich
  2. URPP Evolution in Action: From Genomes to Ecosystems, Universität Zürich
  3. Swiss National Science Foundation Research Council: president of division and five new members elected
  4. Feuillet, C., Travella, S., Stein, N., Albar, L., Nublat, A. and Keller, B. 2003. Map-based isolation of the leaf rust disease resistance gene Lr10 from the hexaploid wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genome. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 100: 15253-15258
  5. Yahiaoui, N., Srichumpa, P., Dudler, R. and Keller, B. 2004. Genome analysis at different ploidy levels allows cloning of the powdery mildew resistance gene Pm3b from hexaploid wheat. Plant J., 37: 528-538
  6. Hurni, S., Scheuermann. D., Krattinger, S.G., Kessel, B., Wicker, T., Herren, G., Fitze, M., Breen, J., Presterl, T., Ouzunova, M. and Keller, B. 2015. The maize disease resistance gene Htn1 against northern corn leaf blight encodes a wall-associated receptor-like kinase. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 112: 8780-8785. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1502522112
  7. Sanchez-Martin, J., Widrig, V., Herren., G., Wicker, T., Zbinden, H., Gronnier, J., Spörri, L., Praz, C.R., Heuberger, M., Kolodziej, M.C., Isaksson, J., Steuernagel, B., Karfiatova, M., Dolezel, J., Zipfel, C. and Keller, B. 2021. Wheat Pm4 resistance to powdery mildew is controlled by alternative splice variants encoding chimeric proteins. Nature Plants, 7: 327-341. 10.1038/s41477-021-00869-2
  8. Kolodziej, M.C., Singla, J., Sanchez-Martin, J., Zbinden, H., Simkova, H., Karafiatova, M., Dolezel, J., Gronnier, J., Poretti, M., Glauser, G., Zhu, W., Köster, P., Zipfel, C., Wicker, T.*, Krattinger, S.G.* and Keller, B.* 2021. A membrane-bound ankyrin repeat protein confers race-specific leaf rust disease resistance in wheat. Nature Communications 12: 956. DOI:10.1038/s41467-020-20777-x
  9. Gaurav, K.*, Arora, S.*, Silva, P.*, Sanchez-Martin, J.*, Horsnell, R.*, Gao, L., Brar, G.S., Widrig, V., Raupp, J., Singh, R., Wu, S., Kale, S.M., Chinoy, C., Nicholson, P., Quiroz-Chavez, J., Simmonds, J., Hayta, S., Smedley, M.A., Harwood, W., Pearce, S., Gilbert, D., Kangara, N., Gardener, C., Forner-Martinez, M., Liu, J., Yu, G., Boden, S., Pascucci, A., Ghosh, S., Hafeez, A.N., O’Hara, T., Waites, J., Cheema, J., Steuernagel, B., Patpour, M., Fejer Justesen, A., Liu, S., Rudd, J., Avni, R., Sharon, A., Steiner, B., Pasthika Kirana, R., Buerstmayr, H., Mehrabi, A.A., Nasyrova, F.Y., Chayut, N., Matny, O., Steffensenon, B.J., Sandhu, N., Chhuneja, P., Lagudah, E., Elkot, A.F., Tyrell, S., Bian, X., Davey, R.P., Simonsen, M., Schauser, L., Tiwari, V.K., Kutcher, H.R., Hucl, P., Li, A., Liu, D.-C., Mao, L., Xu, S., Brown-Guedira, G., Faris, J., Dvorak, J., Luo, M.-C., Krasileva, K., Lux, T., Artmeier, S., Mayer, K.-F., Uauy, C., Mascher, M., Bentley, A.R.+, Keller, B.+, Poland, J.+ and Wulff, B.B.+ 2022. Population genomic analysis of Aegilops tauschii identifies targets for bread wheat improvement. Nature Biotechnology, 40: 422–431. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-021-01058-4 * Co-first authors with equal contributions + Corresponding authors
  10. Krattinger, S., Lagudah, E.S., Spielmeyer, W., Singh, R.P., Huerta-Espino, J., McFadden, H., Bossolini, E., Selter, L.L. and Keller, B. 2009. A putative ABC transporter confers durable resistance to multiple fungal pathogens in wheat. Science, 323: 1360-1363. Online in ScienceExpress 19 February 2009; 10.1126/science.1166453
  11. Krattinger, S., Kang, J., Braeunlich, S., Boeni, R., Chauhan, H., Selter, L., Robinson, M., Schmid, M., Wiederhold, E., Hensel, G., Kumlehn, J., Sucher, J., Martinoia, E. and Keller, B. 2019. Abscisic acid is a substrate of the ABC transporter encoded by the durable wheat disease resistance gene Lr34. New Phytologist, 223: 853–866
  12. Koller, T., Camenzind, M., Jung, E., Brunner, S., Herren, G., Armbruster, C. and Keller, B. 2024. Pyramiding of transgenic immune receptors from primary and tertiary wheat gene pools improves powdery mildew resistance in the field. Journal of Experimental Botany, https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erad493
  13. Bourras, S., McNally, K., Ben-David, R., Parlange, F., Roffler, S., Praz, C., Oberhaensli, S., Menardo, F., Stirnweis, D., Frenkel, Z., Schaefer, L., Flueckiger, S., Treier, G., Herren, G., Korol, A., Wicker, T. and Keller, B.* 2015. Multiple avirulence loci and allele-specific effector recognition control the Pm3 race-specific resistance of wheat to powdery mildew. Plant Cell, 27: 2991-3012
  14. Bourras, S.*, Kunz, L. *, Xue, M. *, Praz, C.R., Müller, M.C., Kälin, C., Schläfli, M., Ackermann, P., Flückiger, S., Menardo, F., Schaefer, L.K, Ben-David, R., Roffler, S., Oberhaensli, S., Widrig, V., Lindner, S., Isaksson, J., Wicker, T., Yu, D.+, Keller, B.+ 2019. The AvrPm3-Pm3 effector-NLR interactions control both race-specific resistance and host-specificity of cereal mildews on wheat. Nature Communications, 10: 2292 * Equal contributions, +Corresponding authors
  15. Menardo F, Praz CR, Wyder S, Ben-David R, Bourras S, Matsumae H, McNally KE, Parlange F, Riba A, Roffler S, Schaefer LK, Shimizu KK, Valenti L, Zbinden H, Wicker T, Keller B. 2016. Hybridization of powdery mildew strains gives rise to pathogens on novel agricultural crop species. Nature Genetics, 48: 201-205
  16. Mueller, M.C.*, Kunz, L.*, Schudel, S., Lawson, A.W., Kammerecker, S., Isaksson, J., Wyler, M., Graf, J., Sotiropoulos, A.G., Praz, C.R., Manser, B., Wicker, T., Bourras, S. and Keller, B. 2022. Ancient variation of the AvrPm17 gene in powdery mildew limits the effectiveness of the introgressed rye Pm17 resistance gene in wheat. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 119, 30 1-12. e2108808119 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.21088081191 *Co-first authors with equal contributions
  17. Kunz; L, Sotiropoulos; A.G., Graf, J., Razavi, M., Keller, B.* and Müller, M.C.* 2023. The broad use of the Pm8 resistance gene in wheat resulted in hypermutation of the AvrPm8 gene in the powdery mildew pathogen. BMC Biology, 21 (1), 29. * Corresponding authors
  18. Wheat Genome Sequencing
  19. IWGSC 2018. International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium. 2018. [A total of 202 authors]. IWGSC RefSeq principal investigators: Appels, R., Eversole, K., Feuillet, C., Keller, B., Rogers, J., Stein, N. Shifting the limits in wheat research and breeding using a fully annotated reference genome. Science, 361: eaar7191. DOI:10.1126/science.aar7191