Gregory J. Lawrence

TL;DR: It is shown that the flax rust fungus AvrL567 genes, whose products are recognized by the L5, L6, and L7 R proteins of flax, are highly diverse, with 12 sequence variants identified from six rust strains and suggested to represent an alternative outcome of plant-pathogen coevolution to indirect recognition associated with simple balanced polymorphisms for functional and nonfunctional R and Avr genes.

TL;DR: Functional analysis in transgenic plants of recombinant alleles constructed in vitro provided further information, indicating that the evolution of L alleles has probably involved reassortment of variation, resulting from accumulated point mutations, by intragenic recombination.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors identified genes encoding haustorially expressed secreted proteins (HESPs) by screening a flax rust-specific cDNA library and identifying 21 HESPs, one corresponding to the AvrL567 gene.

TL;DR: Differences in the three AvrL567 protein sequences result from diversifying selection, which is consistent with a coevolutionary arms race.

TL;DR: A spontaneous rust-susceptible mutant of P2 contained a G→E amino acid substitution in the GLPL motif, providing direct evidence for the importance of this motif in resistance gene function.