Skip to main content
ISMPMI Congress 2025 Main banner
Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.

Poster

Session: Session 2 Presenting Authors at Posters (Evens)

P-004 - A novel zinc finger protein, ENIC, enhances NLR-mediated cell death

Thursday, July 17, 2025
13:30 - 15:15  
Location: Confex Hall 3
Crop resistance genetics and genomics

    Presenting Author(s)

  • JC

    Jeen Choi

    Seoul National University
    Seoul, Korea, KOREA

    • Author(s)

  • HL

    Hye-young Lee

    Professor
    Gyeongsang National University
    Jinju, Kyongsang-namdo, Republic of Korea

  • JK

    Junhyeong Kong

    Student
    Seoul National University, Seoul-t'ukpyolsi, Republic of Korea

  • DC

    Doil Choi

    corresponding author
    Seoul National University
    Seoul, Seoul-t'ukpyolsi, Republic of Korea

Pvr4 is a CC-NLR identified in Capsicum annuum landrace CM334. It recognizes the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (NIb) of potyviruses and induces an effector-triggered immune response (ETI), leading to localized cell death known as the hypersensitive response. Despite its long-lasting ability to confer viral resistance in pepper, the molecular components regulating Pvr4 remain to be identified. In this study, we discovered that a previously uncharacterized zinc finger protein, named ENIC (Enhancer of NLR-Induced Cell death), accelerates Pvr4-mediated cell death when transiently expressed in Nicotiana benthamiana. The acceleration of Pvr4-mediated cell death by ENIC was not due to a direct protein-protein interaction, as a co-immunoprecipitation (Co-IP) assay showed no interaction between ENIC and the Pvr4 protein. Instead, ENIC increased the Pvr4 protein level. Interestingly, although Pvr4 was expressed under the control of the constitutively active 35S promoter, ENIC increased Pvr4 mRNA levels, suggesting that ENIC enhances Pvr4 protein levels by stabilizing its mRNA. Domain analysis indicated that the leucine-rich repeat (LRR) domain of Pvr4 is sufficient for ENIC to increase protein levels, further suggesting that ENIC stabilizes Pvr4 mRNA through the mRNA region encoding the LRR domain. How ENIC stabilizes Pvr4 mRNA and examining whether it also stabilizes other NLRs will be discussed in the poster session.