Combining physical modelling and experiments to study how plant structure shapes the evolution of plant viruses

结合物理模型和实验来研究植物结构如何影响植物病毒的进化

• 批准号: 2578996
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2578996
• 关键词: Combining; physical; modelling; experiments; study

This project will address the role of plant structure on the replication and evolution of viral plant pathogens. This is important because current research focuses on the cellular scale of virus infections and the evolution of viruses during spread between plants, but replication dynamics and evolution are expected to be most important at the scale in between - while a local infection develops to a systemic infection within the plant. Understanding virus population dynamics and concurrent evolution within a plant will help us develop strategies to prevent or delay the resistance to plant viruses bred into crops. The project will follow a combined experimental and theoretical approach and aims to uncover (i) the replication dynamics within the plant at high spatial resolution, (ii) the resulting evolutionary dynamics, and (iii) strategies to guide the virus' evolution (mainly with the aim to prevent overcoming host resistance). Experiments and theoretical work will occur in parallel, mutually benefitting each other.The model system used will be Tobacco Etch Virus (TEV) in a variety of different hosts, in particular Nicotiana benthamiana and C24 ecotype of Arabidopsis thaliana. The former is ideal for the transient expression of transgenes to modify viral passage through leaf tissue, while the latter will enable us to stably genetically modify the host and selectively express transgenes in specific tissues to influence systemic viral spread. The student will use fluorescently labelled viruses to investigate replication dynamics and estimate the amount of stochasticity. This non- destructive approach will be complemented by qPCR, Western blotting, and population sequencing to infer the dynamics of the virus and its evolution within the plant. On the theoretical side, we will build and use an integrated model for virus dynamics within the plant. The model will be individual-based at the point of infection to account for the inherent stochasticity. At this scale, infection of individual plant cells will be considered. At the scale of the whole plant, we will model flows and associated virus transport using advection-reaction-diffusion equations.

该项目将研究植物结构对病毒性植物病原体的复制和进化的作用。这很重要，因为当前的研究重点是病毒感染的细胞规模以及病毒在植物之间传播过程中的进化，但复制动态和进化预计在两者之间的规模上最为重要 - 当局部感染发展为全身感染时工厂内。了解病毒种群动态和植物内的并发进化将有助于我们制定策略来预防或延缓作物对植物病毒的抗性。该项目将遵循实验和理论相结合的方法，旨在揭示（i）高空间分辨率下植物内的复制动态，（ii）由此产生的进化动态，以及（iii）指导病毒进化的策略（主要是通过目的是防止克服宿主抵抗）。实验和理论工作将并行进行，互惠互利。所使用的模型系统将是各种不同宿主中的烟草蚀纹病毒（TEV），特别是烟草本塞姆氏菌和拟南芥C24生态型。前者非常适合转基因的瞬时表达，以改变病毒通过叶组织的通道，而后者将使我们能够稳定地对宿主进行遗传修饰，并在特定组织中选择性表达转基因，以影响系统性病毒传播。学生将使用荧光标记的病毒来研究复制动态并估计随机性。这种非破坏性方法将得到 qPCR、蛋白质印迹和群体测序的补充，以推断病毒的动态及其在植物内的进化。在理论方面，我们将建立并使用植物内病毒动力学的集成模型。该模型将在感染点以个体为基础，以考虑固有的随机性。在这种规模下，将考虑单个植物细胞的感染。在整个工厂的规模上，我们将使用平流反应扩散方程对流动和相关的病毒运输进行建模。