Vaccine-Induced Immunity in Baboons by Using DNA and Replication-Incompetent Adenovirus Type 5 Vectors Expressing a Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 gag Gene

This is the published version. Copyright 2003 American Society for Microbiology.The cellular immunogenicity of formulated plasmid DNA and replication-defective human adenovirus serotype 5 (Ad5) vaccine vectors expressing a codon-optimized human immunodeficiency virus type 1 gag gene was examined in baboons. The Ad5 vaccine was capable of inducing consistently strong, long-lived CD8+-biased T-cell responses and in vitro cytotoxic activities. The DNA vaccine-elicited immune responses were weaker than those elicited by the Ad5 vaccine and highly variable; formulation with chemical adjuvants led to moderate increases in the levels of Gag-specific T cells. Increasing the DNA-primed responses with booster doses of either Ad5 or modified vaccinia virus Ankara vaccines suggests a difference in the relative levels of cytotoxic and helper responses. The implications of these results are discussed

Wheat receptor-kinase-like protein Stb6 controls gene-for-gene resistance to fungal pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici

Deployment of fast-evolving disease-resistance genes is one of the most successful strategies used by plants to fend off pathogens. In gene-for-gene relationships, most cloned disease-resistance genes encode intracellular nucleotide-binding leucine-rich-repeat proteins (NLRs) recognizing pathogensecreted isolate-specific avirulence (Avr) effectors delivered to the host cytoplasm. This process often triggers a localized hypersensitive response, which halts further disease development. Here we report the map-based cloning of the wheat Stb6 gene and demonstrate that it encodes a conserved wallassociated receptor kinase (WAK)-like protein, which detects the presence of a matching apoplastic effector and confers pathogen resistance without a hypersensitive response. This report demonstrates gene-for-gene disease resistance controlled by this class of proteins in plants. Moreover, Stb6 is, to our knowledge, the first cloned gene specifying resistance to Zymoseptoria tritici, an important foliar fungal pathogen affecting wheat and causing economically damaging septoria tritici blotch (STB) disease

Alleles of a wall‐associated kinase gene account for three of the major northern corn leaf blight resistance loci in maize

Northern corn leaf blight, caused by the fungal pathogen Setosphaeria turcica (anamorph Exserohilum turcicum), is one of the most devastating foliar diseases of maize (Zea mays). Four genes Ht1, Ht2, Ht3 and Htn1 represent the major sources of genetic resistance against the hemibiotrophic fungus S. turcica. Differential maize lines containing these genes also form the basis to classify S. turcica races. Here, we show that Ht2 and Ht3 are identical and allelic to the previously cloned Htn1 gene. Using a map-based cloning approach and Targeting Induced Local Lesions in Genomes (TILLING), we demonstrate that Ht2/Ht3 is an allele of the wall-associated receptor-like kinase gene ZmWAK-RLK1. The ZmWAK-RLK1 variants encoded by Htn1 and Ht2/Ht3 differ by multiple amino acid polymorphisms that particularly affect the putative extracellular domain. A diversity analysis in maize revealed the presence of dozens of ZmWAK-RLK1 alleles. Ht2, Ht3 and Htn1 have been described over decades as independent resistance loci with different race spectra and resistance responses. Our work demonstrates that these three genes are allelic, which has major implications for northern corn leaf blight resistance breeding and nomenclature of S. turcica pathotypes. We hypothesize that genetic background effects have confounded the classical description of these disease resistance genes in the past