The product of the tobacco mosaic virus resistance gene N: similarity to Toll and the interleukin-1 receptor

The resistance gene N of tobacco, which mediates the resistance to the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), is isolated by transposon tagging. The tagging uses the maize activator transposon, which confers the genomic DNA fragment with an N gene to TMV susceptible tobacco. The plant disease resistance genes identify and combat the invading pathogens by triggering host defense responses. This is performed by the resistance gene N, which encodes the 131.4 kDa protein with an amino acid terminal domain.