Evolving disease resistance genes

  • Blake C. Meyers
  • , Shail Kaushik
  • , Raja Sekhar Nandety

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

290 Scopus citations

Abstract

Defenses against most specialized plant pathogens are often initiated by a plant disease resistance gene. Plant genomes encode several classes of genes that can function as resistance genes. Many of the mechanisms that drive the molecular evolution of these genes are now becoming clear. The processes that contribute to the diversity of R genes include tandem and segmental gene duplications, recombination, unequal crossing-over, point mutations, and diversifying selection. Diversity within populations is maintained by balancing selection. Analyses of whole-genome sequences have and will continue to provide new insight into the dynamics of resistance gene evolution.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)129-134
Number of pages6
JournalCurrent Opinion in Plant Biology
Volume8
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2005

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