Beat Keller Explained

Beat Keller
Birth Date:14 September 1958
Birth Place:Interlaken, Switzerland
Field:molecular biology, botany, wheat
Work Institutions:University of Zurich
Known For:disease resistance in cereals, wheat genome sequencing

Beat Keller (born 14 September 1958) is a Swiss molecular biologist and professor of plant molecular biology at the University of Zurich. He is known for his research on disease resistance in cereals.

Life

Keller studied biology at the University of Basel from 1978 to 1982. His dissertation dealt with shape-determining proteins of the bacteriophage capsid T4: The role of gene products 67 and 68. In 1985 he began a postdoctoral fellowship at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel. In 1986, he continued his training as a molecular biologist with an EMBO Longterm Fellowship at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, where he worked in the plant biology research group of Christopher John Lamb. In 1989, Keller returned to Switzerland and founded a plant biotechnology group at the Swiss Federal Research Station for Agronomy (today Agroscope). The group, which specialized in cereal genetics, disease resistance and molecular markers, was headed by Keller until 1997. In 1995, he became a lecturer at ETH Zurich and in 1997 accepted an appointment as Professor of Molecular Plant Biology at the University of Zurich. From 1997 to 2014, he was Director of the Institute of Plant Biology at the University of Zurich and from 2002 to 2006 and from 2016 to 2018 Chairman of the Department of Biology.[1] From 2000 to 2006, Keller was Vice President of the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT) and is codirector of the research program "Evolution in Action".[2] From 2014 to 2022, he was a member of the Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation.[3] He is a member of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, India, and was admitted as a member of the section Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina on 23 June 2015.

Scientific contribution

Beat Keller's research focuses on the molecular basis of disease resistance in the cereals wheat, maize, barley and rye. This involves characterizing genes that are responsible for the formation of specific immune receptors. This included the isolation of the first resistance genes against fungal diseases in wheat[4] [5] and against leaf spot disease in maize.[6] In 2021, novel resistance genes were identified in wheat against powdery mildew and wheat leaf rust.[7] [8] [9] In addition, an important quantitative resistance gene, Lr34, was isolated, which is used intensively in wheat cultivation worldwide and has a novel resistance mechanism.[10] [11] Modified resistance genes were tested in field trials (www.protectedsite.ch) in transgenic wheat and barley plants.[12]

In complementary research directions, the molecular mechanisms of the evolution of the powdery mildew pathogen in its adaptation to new host species were identified and the molecules of the pathogen recognized by immune receptors were characterized.[13] [14] [15] [16] [17] The work on the wheat genome within the framework of the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium[18] led to the production of the first high-quality wheat genome sequence.[19]

Publications

See also

Wheat: Disease resistance

External links

References

  1. https://www.botinst.uzh.ch/en/research/genetics/bkeller/gallery.html Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Zürich
  2. https://www.evolution.uzh.ch/en/aboutus/steering/bkeller.html URPP Evolution in Action: From Genomes to Ecosystems, Universität Zürich
  3. https://www.snf.ch/en/kV3QXGwa4WVyeEd5/news/news-140912-research-council-president-of-division-and-members-elected Swiss National Science Foundation Research Council: president of division and five new members elected
  4. Feuillet, C., Travella, S., Stein, N., Albar, L., Nublat, A. and Keller, B. 2003. Map-based isolation of the leaf rust disease resistance gene Lr10 from the hexaploid wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genome. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 100: 15253-15258
  5. Yahiaoui, N., Srichumpa, P., Dudler, R. and Keller, B. 2004. Genome analysis at different ploidy levels allows cloning of the powdery mildew resistance gene Pm3b from hexaploid wheat. Plant J., 37: 528-538
  6. Hurni, S., Scheuermann. D., Krattinger, S.G., Kessel, B., Wicker, T., Herren, G., Fitze, M., Breen, J., Presterl, T., Ouzunova, M. and Keller, B. 2015. The maize disease resistance gene Htn1 against northern corn leaf blight encodes a wall-associated receptor-like kinase. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 112: 8780-8785. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1502522112
  7. Sanchez-Martin, J., Widrig, V., Herren., G., Wicker, T., Zbinden, H., Gronnier, J., Spörri, L., Praz, C.R., Heuberger, M., Kolodziej, M.C., Isaksson, J., Steuernagel, B., Karfiatova, M., Dolezel, J., Zipfel, C. and Keller, B. 2021. Wheat Pm4 resistance to powdery mildew is controlled by alternative splice variants encoding chimeric proteins. Nature Plants, 7: 327-341. 10.1038/s41477-021-00869-2
  8. Kolodziej, M.C., Singla, J., Sanchez-Martin, J., Zbinden, H., Simkova, H., Karafiatova, M., Dolezel, J., Gronnier, J., Poretti, M., Glauser, G., Zhu, W., Köster, P., Zipfel, C., Wicker, T.*, Krattinger, S.G.* and Keller, B.* 2021. A membrane-bound ankyrin repeat protein confers race-specific leaf rust disease resistance in wheat. Nature Communications 12: 956.
  9. Gaurav, K.*, Arora, S.*, Silva, P.*, Sanchez-Martin, J.*, Horsnell, R.*, Gao, L., Brar, G.S., Widrig, V., Raupp, J., Singh, R., Wu, S., Kale, S.M., Chinoy, C., Nicholson, P., Quiroz-Chavez, J., Simmonds, J., Hayta, S., Smedley, M.A., Harwood, W., Pearce, S., Gilbert, D., Kangara, N., Gardener, C., Forner-Martinez, M., Liu, J., Yu, G., Boden, S., Pascucci, A., Ghosh, S., Hafeez, A.N., O’Hara, T., Waites, J., Cheema, J., Steuernagel, B., Patpour, M., Fejer Justesen, A., Liu, S., Rudd, J., Avni, R., Sharon, A., Steiner, B., Pasthika Kirana, R., Buerstmayr, H., Mehrabi, A.A., Nasyrova, F.Y., Chayut, N., Matny, O., Steffensenon, B.J., Sandhu, N., Chhuneja, P., Lagudah, E., Elkot, A.F., Tyrell, S., Bian, X., Davey, R.P., Simonsen, M., Schauser, L., Tiwari, V.K., Kutcher, H.R., Hucl, P., Li, A., Liu, D.-C., Mao, L., Xu, S., Brown-Guedira, G., Faris, J., Dvorak, J., Luo, M.-C., Krasileva, K., Lux, T., Artmeier, S., Mayer, K.-F., Uauy, C., Mascher, M., Bentley, A.R.+, Keller, B.+, Poland, J.+ and Wulff, B.B.+ 2022. Population genomic analysis of Aegilops tauschii identifies targets for bread wheat improvement. Nature Biotechnology, 40: 422–431. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-021-01058-4 * Co-first authors with equal contributions + Corresponding authors
  10. Krattinger, S., Lagudah, E.S., Spielmeyer, W., Singh, R.P., Huerta-Espino, J., McFadden, H., Bossolini, E., Selter, L.L. and Keller, B. 2009. A putative ABC transporter confers durable resistance to multiple fungal pathogens in wheat. Science, 323: 1360-1363. Online in ScienceExpress 19 February 2009; 10.1126/science.1166453
  11. Krattinger, S., Kang, J., Braeunlich, S., Boeni, R., Chauhan, H., Selter, L., Robinson, M., Schmid, M., Wiederhold, E., Hensel, G., Kumlehn, J., Sucher, J., Martinoia, E. and Keller, B. 2019. Abscisic acid is a substrate of the ABC transporter encoded by the durable wheat disease resistance gene Lr34. New Phytologist, 223: 853–866
  12. Koller, T., Camenzind, M., Jung, E., Brunner, S., Herren, G., Armbruster, C. and Keller, B. 2024. Pyramiding of transgenic immune receptors from primary and tertiary wheat gene pools improves powdery mildew resistance in the field. Journal of Experimental Botany, https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erad493
  13. Bourras, S., McNally, K., Ben-David, R., Parlange, F., Roffler, S., Praz, C., Oberhaensli, S., Menardo, F., Stirnweis, D., Frenkel, Z., Schaefer, L., Flueckiger, S., Treier, G., Herren, G., Korol, A., Wicker, T. and Keller, B.* 2015. Multiple avirulence loci and allele-specific effector recognition control the Pm3 race-specific resistance of wheat to powdery mildew. Plant Cell, 27: 2991-3012
  14. Bourras, S.*, Kunz, L. *, Xue, M. *, Praz, C.R., Müller, M.C., Kälin, C., Schläfli, M., Ackermann, P., Flückiger, S., Menardo, F., Schaefer, L.K, Ben-David, R., Roffler, S., Oberhaensli, S., Widrig, V., Lindner, S., Isaksson, J., Wicker, T., Yu, D.+, Keller, B.+ 2019. The AvrPm3-Pm3 effector-NLR interactions control both race-specific resistance and host-specificity of cereal mildews on wheat. Nature Communications, 10: 2292 * Equal contributions, +Corresponding authors
  15. Menardo F, Praz CR, Wyder S, Ben-David R, Bourras S, Matsumae H, McNally KE, Parlange F, Riba A, Roffler S, Schaefer LK, Shimizu KK, Valenti L, Zbinden H, Wicker T, Keller B. 2016. Hybridization of powdery mildew strains gives rise to pathogens on novel agricultural crop species. Nature Genetics, 48: 201-205
  16. Mueller, M.C.*, Kunz, L.*, Schudel, S., Lawson, A.W., Kammerecker, S., Isaksson, J., Wyler, M., Graf, J., Sotiropoulos, A.G., Praz, C.R., Manser, B., Wicker, T., Bourras, S. and Keller, B. 2022. Ancient variation of the AvrPm17 gene in powdery mildew limits the effectiveness of the introgressed rye Pm17 resistance gene in wheat. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 119, 30 1-12. e2108808119 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.21088081191 *Co-first authors with equal contributions
  17. Kunz; L, Sotiropoulos; A.G., Graf, J., Razavi, M., Keller, B.* and Müller, M.C.* 2023. The broad use of the Pm8 resistance gene in wheat resulted in hypermutation of the AvrPm8 gene in the powdery mildew pathogen. BMC Biology, 21 (1), 29. * Corresponding authors
  18. https://www.wheatgenome.org/ Wheat Genome Sequencing
  19. IWGSC 2018. International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium. 2018. [A total of 202 authors]. IWGSC RefSeq principal investigators: Appels, R., Eversole, K., Feuillet, C., Keller, B., Rogers, J., Stein, N. Shifting the limits in wheat research and breeding using a fully annotated reference genome. Science, 361: eaar7191.

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