To more sustainably mitigate the impact of crop diseases on plant health and productivity, there is a need for broader spectrum, long-lasting resistance traits. Defense response (DR) genes, located throughout the genome, participate in cellular and system-wide defense mechanisms to stave off infection by diverse pathogens. This multigenic resistance avoids rapid evolution of a pathogen to overcome host resistance. DR genes reside within resistance-associated quantitative trait loci (QTL), and alleles of DR genes in resistant varieties are more active during pathogen attack relative to susceptible haplotypes. Differential expression of DR genes results from polymorphisms in their regulatory regions, that includes cis-regulatory elements such as transcription factor binding sites as well as features that influence epigenetic structural changes to modulate chromatin accessibility during infection. Many of these elements are found in clusters, known as cis-regulatory modules (CRMs), which are distributed throughout the host genome. Regulatory regions involved in plant–pathogen interactions may also contain pathogen effector binding elements that regulate DR gene expression, and that, when mutated, result in a change in the plants’ response. We posit that CRMs and the multiple regulatory elements that comprise them are potential targets for marker-assisted breeding for broad-spectrum, durable disease resistance.

中文翻译：

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基因间空间：改善植物健康的新领域

为了更可持续地减轻作物病害对植物健康和生产力的影响，需要更广谱、持久的抗性特性。防御反应 (DR) 基因位于整个基因组中，参与细胞和系统范围的防御机制，以防止不同病原体的感染。这种多基因抗性避免了病原体的快速进化以克服宿主抗性。DR 基因位于与抗性相关的数量性状基因座 (QTL) 内，相对于易感单倍型，抗性品种中 DR 基因的等位基因在病原体攻击期间更活跃。DR 基因的差异表达源于其调控区域的多态性，包括顺式-调节元件，例如转录因子结合位点以及影响表观遗传结构变化以调节感染期间染色质可及性的特征。许多这些元件以簇的形式存在，称为顺式调节模块 (CRM)，它们分布在整个宿主基因组中。涉及植物-病原体相互作用的调节区域也可能包含病原体效应结合元件，这些元件调节 DR 基因表达，并且当发生突变时，会导致植物反应发生变化。我们假设 CRM 和包含它们的多个调控元件是标记辅助育种的潜在目标，用于广谱、持久的抗病性。