Alexandra Margets et al. investigated the role of Cysteine Protease 1 (CPR1), a cysteine protease secreted by the soybean cyst nematode (SCN), in infection. Their findings show that transient expression of CPR1 in Nicotiana benthamiana leaves inhibited cell death triggered by the immune protein RPS5, suggesting CPR1 suppresses effector-triggered immunity. They also found that CPR1 localizes to mitochondria and identified the soybean protein GmBCAT1 as a substrate of CPR1. Silencing CPR1 in SCN reduced its ability to penetrate soybean roots, while overexpression of CPR1 in soybean roots increased susceptibility to the nematode, highlighting CPR1 as a promising target for decoy substrate engineering.

 

Read the Commentary by Assistant Feature Editor Meenu Singla-Rastogi. ​