How does the fungal pathogen Botrytis cinerea regulate its virulence mechanisms and can we use network re-wiring for plant immunity?

真菌病原体灰葡萄孢如何调节其毒力机制？我们能否利用网络重连来实现植物免疫？

• 批准号: 2752178
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of York
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2752178
• 关键词: How; does; fungal; pathogen; Botrytis

We study the economically important fungal pathogen Botrytis cinerea which infects a broad range of fruit and vegetable crops, as well as the model plant Arabidopsis. We are interested in the complex molecular events in the pathogen and the host plant, how these are regulated and how the interaction of these determines the severity of disease. Understanding this will open up new sustainable crop disease control strategies, helping reduce reliance on chemical methods. In our lab we combine experimental and computational biology and have used large-scale transcriptome data and computational modelling to generate gene network models regulating host immunity and pathogen virulence. These networks predict important transcriptional regulators of pathogen virulence which we will investigate in this project using RNAi gene silencing strategies, focusing on the importance of these regulators during infection of different host plants. As part of their attack strategy, pathogens manipulate the host plant immune response (via small RNA which can silence specific genes). In this project, we will first identify how the pathogen manipulates and evades host immunity during infection. Second, we will use our knowledge of host gene networks to ask whether we can overcome this manipulation through synthetic biology - re-wiring of the plant gene networks, changing how vital immunity genes are controlled. This PhD project will allow candidate to develop skills in plant and pathogen growth, pathogen infection assays, genotyping, transcriptomics, molecular biology, generation and characterisation of transgenic Arabidopsis, network analysis and bioinformatics. It will suit someone with an interest in molecular plant disease resistance, plant-pathogen interaction, synthetic biology, bioinformatics, and sustainable crop production.

我们研究了经济上重要的真菌病原体辣椒粉，它会感染各种水果和蔬菜作物以及模型植物拟南芥。我们对病原体和宿主植物中复杂的分子事件感兴趣，如何调节这些事件以及这些相互作用如何决定疾病的严重程度。了解这将开辟新的可持续作物疾病控制策略，有助于减少对化学方法的依赖。在我们的实验室中，我们结合了实验和计算生物学，并使用了大规模的转录组数据和计算建模来生成调节宿主免疫和病原体毒力的基因网络模型。这些网络预测了病原体毒力的重要转录调节因子，我们将在该项目中使用RNAi基因沉默策略进行研究，重点是在不同宿主植物感染期间这些调节剂的重要性。作为其攻击策略的一部分，病原体操纵宿主植物免疫反应（通过可能会使特定基因沉默的小RNA）。在这个项目中，我们将首先确定病原体在感染过程中如何操纵和逃避宿主免疫。其次，我们将利用对宿主基因网络的了解来询问我们是否可以通过合成生物学来克服这种操纵 - 重新培养植物基因网络，从而改变了如何控制重要的免疫基因。该博士学位项目将使候选人能够发展植物和病原体生长，病原体感染分析，基因分型，转录组学，分子生物学，转基因拟南芥的产生和表征，网络分析和生物信息学的技能。它适合对分子植物性疾病抗性，植物病原体相互作用，合成生物学，生物信息学和可持续作物产生感兴趣的人。