BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:researchseminars.org CALSCALE:GREGORIAN X-WR-CALNAME:researchseminars.org BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Prof. Dr. Detlef Weigel (Max Planck Institute for Developmental Bi ology) DTSTART:20201125T090000Z DTEND:20201125T110000Z DTSTAMP:20260423T023939Z UID:MCB_LUMS/6 DESCRIPTION:Title: Epistasis\, the Spice of Life (and Evolution) - Lessons from the study of the plant immune system\nby Prof. Dr. Detlef Weigel (Max Planck Insti tute for Developmental Biology) as part of Colloquium zooming Molecular & Cellular Biology LUMS\n\n\nAbstract\nMy group is addressing fundamental qu estions in evolutionary biology\, using both genome- and phenotype-first a pproaches. A few years ago\, we discovered that Arabidopsis thaliana is a great model for the study of hybrid necrosis. This widespread syndrome of hybrid failure in plants is caused by plant paranoia – regardless of the presence of enemies\, plants “think” they are being attacked by patho gens. Over the past decade\, we have studied in detail the underlying gene tics\, finding that often one or two loci encoding NLR immune receptors ar e causal. NLRs make up the most variable gene family in plants\, and it is not surprising that they are often involved in genome-genome conflicts. H ybrid necrosis results when NLR genes meet that have not been co-adapted. This has in turn raised the question of the scale of NLR diversity\, and o ur goal for the next decade is to understand the genomic and geographic pa tterns of immune system and especially NLR diversity. In 2018\, we initiat ed a project\, PATHO(gens in Arabi)DOPSIS\, in which we aim to describe ge netic diversity in the host A. thaliana and two of its important pathogens \, the generalist Pseudomonas sp. and the specialist Hyaloperonospora arab idopsidis. The long-term vision is to produce maps of resistance alleles i n the host\, and of effector alleles in the pathogens\, in order to learn when the pathogens win in a wild plant pathosystem – and when the hosts prevail.\n LOCATION:https://researchseminars.org/talk/MCB_LUMS/6/ END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR