Beat Keller

Last updated
Beat Keller
Born (1958-09-14) 14 September 1958 (age 66)
Interlaken, Switzerland
Known fordisease resistance in cereals, wheat genome sequencing
Scientific career
Fields molecular biology, botany, wheat
Institutions University of Zurich

Beat Keller (born 14 September 1958) 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 23 June 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

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wheat</span> Genus of grass cultivated for grain

Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a staple food around the world. The many species of wheat together make up the genus Triticum ; the most widely grown is common wheat. The archaeological record suggests that wheat was first cultivated in the regions of the Fertile Crescent around 9600 BC. Botanically, the wheat kernel is a caryopsis, a type of fruit.

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

Blumeria graminis is a fungus that causes powdery mildew on grasses, including cereals. It is the only species in the genus Blumeria. It has also been called Erysiphe graminis and Oidium monilioides or Oidium tritici.

The gene-for-gene relationship is a concept in plant pathology that plants and their diseases each have single genes that interact with each other during an infection. It was proposed by Harold Henry Flor who was working with rust (Melampsora lini) of flax (Linum usitatissimum). Flor showed that the inheritance of both resistance in the host and parasite ability to cause disease is controlled by pairs of matching genes. One is a plant gene called the resistance (R) gene. The other is a parasite gene called the avirulence (Avr) gene. Plants producing a specific R gene product are resistant towards a pathogen that produces the corresponding Avr gene product. Gene-for-gene relationships are a widespread and very important aspect of plant disease resistance. Another example can be seen with Lactuca serriola versus Bremia lactucae.

Leptosphaeria maculans is a fungal pathogen of the phylum Ascomycota that is the causal agent of blackleg disease on Brassica crops. Its genome has been sequenced, and L. maculans is a well-studied model phytopathogenic fungus. Symptoms of blackleg generally include basal stem cankers, small grey lesions on leaves, and root rot. The major yield loss is due to stem canker. The fungus is dispersed by the wind as ascospores or rain splash in the case of the conidia. L. maculans grows best in wet conditions and a temperature range of 5–20 degrees Celsius. Rotation of crops, removal of stubble, application of fungicide, and crop resistance are all used to manage blackleg. The fungus is an important pathogen of Brassica napus (canola) crops.

<i>Zymoseptoria tritici</i> Species of fungus

Zymoseptoria tritici, synonyms Septoria tritici, Mycosphaerella graminicola, is a species of filamentous fungus, an ascomycete in the family Mycosphaerellaceae. It is a wheat plant pathogen causing septoria leaf blotch that is difficult to control due to resistance to multiple fungicides. The pathogen today causes one of the most important diseases of wheat.

<i>Podosphaera macularis</i> Species of fungus

Podosphaera macularis is a plant pathogen infecting several hosts including chamomile, caneberrie, strawberries, hop, hemp and Cineraria. It causes powdery mildew of hops.

<i>Podosphaera pannosa</i> Species of fungus

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

Thinopyrum intermedium, known commonly as intermediate wheatgrass, is a sod-forming perennial grass in the Triticeae tribe of Pooideae native to Europe and Western Asia. It is part of a group of plants commonly called wheatgrasses because of the similarity of their seed heads or ears to common wheat. However, wheatgrasses generally are perennial, while wheat is an annual. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit as an ornamental.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plant disease resistance</span> Ability of plants to withstand pathogens

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

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<i>Leymus mollis</i> Species of grass

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Ernest Robert Sears was an American geneticist, botanist, pioneer of plant genetics, and leading expert on wheat cytogenetics. Sears and Sir Ralph Riley (1924–1999) are perhaps the two most important founders of chromosome engineering in plant breeding.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Strawberry cultivation in California</span>

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John M. McDowell is the J.B. Stroobants Professor of Biotechnology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. His major area of research is phytopathology and plant-pathogen interactions. He has used gene-sequencing technology to examine the genome of Phytophthora capsici and to develop strains of soybean plants that are better able to defend against pathogens.

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
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