Potato late blight severely threatens global food security. A recent comprehensive analysis of the NLR gene complement across diverse potato ( Solanum tuberosum ) genomes identified previously undescribed resistance genes. This analysis prompted the design of the “domain plug-in” engineering strategy, which involves swapping functional domains between NLRs to broaden the scope of disease resistance. This approach provides a transformative blueprint for designing crops with durable, broad-spectrum disease resistance.
Su et al. (Wed,) studied this question.