Abstract: The bacterial plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae injects effector proteins into host cells via a type III protein secretion system to cause disease. The invention relates to the discovery that the type III effector HopU1 is a mono-ADP-ribosyltransferase (ADP-RT) and suppresses plant innate immunity. The HopU1 substrates in Arabidopsis thaliana extracts were RNA-binding proteins that possess RNA-recognition motifs (RRMs). A. thaliana knock-out lines defective in the glycine-rich RNA-binding protein AtGRP7, a HopU1 substrate, were more susceptible than wild type plants to P. syringae. The ADP-ribosylation of AtGRP7 by HopU1 required two arginines within the RRM. The invention provides novel methods for the modulation of the innate immune response of a plant to a biotic stress, including methods for enhancing or suppressing the innate immune response of the plant.

Abstract: The present invention relates to methods of diffractometrically determining the structures of materials by characterizing their electron density distributions. More particularly, the present invention relates to methods of collecting, processing and interpreting X-ray diffraction data, which allow real time evaluation of the signal-to-noise ratio in crystal diffraction experiments. The present methods related to the derivation of statistical indices for monitoring and evaluating signal-to-noise ratios in diffraction experiments. In addition, the present invention provides methods of determining the electron density distributions of crystals using anomalous scattering signals corrected for noise. Further, the present invention provides methods of increasing the signal-to-noise ratios in X-ray diffraction data.