In the September issue of “Plos Pathogens”, a scientific research article from Dr. Zhang Wei's laboratory has been published with the title “The secreted peptide PIP1 amplifies immunity through receptor-like kinase 7”（2014 Sep 4;10(9):e1004331）. This research was completely carried out in the School of Life Science of Shandong University, and Hou Shuguo, a PhD candidate in Zhang’s group, is the paper’s first author.

Pathogen disease is one of the most severe stresses in restriction of plant growth, development and crop yields. Therefore, these new findings on the the molecular mechanism of plant-pathogen interactions will be helpful for the development of stress-resistant and high-yield agriculture. During pathogen infection, the pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) are perceived by the plant cell’s surface-localized pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) to trigger the PAMP-triggered immunity (PTI), but it remains unknown if the secreted peptide hormones are involved in the immune signaling. This new published work from Zhang’s group identifies a novel secreted peptide, PIP1, and confirms that this peptide can amplify plant immunity through its receptor RLK7 in the model plant Arabidopsis.

Professor Zhang Wei is a principal investigator of School of Life Science, and also a group leader of Key Laboratory of Plant Cell Engineering and Germplasm Innovation of Ministry of Education. His group is focusing on the investigation of plant cell signal transduction, and has published a serial of big papers in the field’s top journals. His laboratory’s research has been financially supported by Shandong University, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Agriculture of the People's Republic of China.

Source:www.view.sdu.edu.cn