Project description:Phosphonate related fungicides such as neutralized phosphorous acid (NPA) are effective for the control of plant diseases caused by Oomycetes including Phytophthora parasitica. It has been proposed that phosphonate may induce plant resistance. However, the mechanism underlying phosphonate-induced resistance remains unclear. The purpose of this study is to identify genes that are differentially expressed in phosphonate-pretreated tomato plants in response to inoculation with Phytophthora parasitica.
Project description:Mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) cascades play essential roles in plants and animals by transducing developmental cues and environmental signals into cellular responses. Among the latter are microbe-associated molecular patterns perceived by plant pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), which trigger immunity. We found that YODA (YDA), a MAPK kinase kinase regulating several Arabidopsis developmental processes, like stomatal and embryo patterning, also modulates immune responses. Resistance to pathogens is compromised in a yda11 hypomorphic allele whereas plants expressing the constitutively active YDA (CA-YDA) protein show broad-spectrum disease resistance to necrotrophic and biotrophic fungi, bacteria and oomycetes. We found that YDA functions downstream ERECTA (ER) Receptor-Like Kinase regulating both immunity and stomatal patterning. ER/YDA-mediated immune responses act in parallel to canonical disease resistance pathways regulated by defensive phytohormones and PRRs, like FLS2 and CERK1, which are required for bacterial and fungal resistance, respectively. CA-YDA plants constitutively express defense-associated genes and exhibit altered cell wall integrity, which contribute to their broad-spectrum disease resistance. CA-YDA plants also show a strong reprogramming of their phosphoproteome, which contains protein targets that do not significantly overlap with described plant MAPKs substrates. Our data suggest that plants might have evolutionarily co-opted the stomata development pathway regulated by ER/YDA to generate a novel immune surveillance system that is distinct from the canonical immune pathways mediated by previously described PRRs and plant defensive hormones.
Project description:This experiment captures the gene expression data from pea roots during interaction with two pathogenic oomycetes: Phytophthora pisi and Aphanomyces euteiches, at 6 hours and 20 hours after infection and the control samples at each time point. In this experiment medicago genome array is used.
Project description:Oomycetes from the genus Phytophthora are fungus-like plant pathogens that are devastating for agriculture and natural ecosystems. Due to particular physiological characteristics, no treatments against diseases caused by oomycetes are presently available. To develop such treatments, it appears essential to dissect the molecular mechanisms that determine the interaction between Phytophthora species and host plants. The present project is focused on the molecular mechanisms that underlie the compatible plant-oomycete interaction and plant disease. The laboratory developed a novel interaction system involving the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, and Phytophthora parasitica, a soil-borne pathogen infecting a wide host range, thus representing the majority of Phytophthora species. A characteristic feature of the compatible Arabidopsis/P. parasitica interaction is an extended biotrophic phase, before infection becomes necrotrophic. Because the initial biotrophic phase is extremely short on natural (e.g. solanaceous) hosts, the Arabidopsis system provides the opportunity to analyze, for both interaction partners, the molecular events that determine the initiation of infection and the switch to necrotrophy. The present project aims at analyzing the compatible interaction between A. thaliana roots and P. parasitica. The Affymetrix A. thaliana full genome chip will be used to characterize modulations of the transcriptome occurring over a period of 24h from the onset of plant root infection to the beginning of necrotrophy. Parallel to this study, a custom-designed P. parasitica biochip will enable analyzing of P. parasitica gene expression during the same stages. 10 samples were used in this experiment.
Project description:Little is known about plant pathogenic response to parasitic plants, although some parasitic plants affect crop production in certain areas. To study this, we chose Glycine max as the model host plant and investigated changes in expression patterns after parasitization by Cuscuta using microarrays.
Project description:Plants are colonized by a variety of microorganisms, the plant microbiota. In the phyllosphere, the above-ground parts of plants, bacteria are the most abundant inhabitants. Most of these microorganisms are not pathogenic and the plant responses to commensals or to pathogen infection in the presence of commensals are not well understood. We report the Arabidopsis leaf transcriptome after 3 to 4 weeks of colonization by Methylobacterium extorquens PA1 and Sphingomonas melonis Fr1, representatives of two abundant genera in the phyllosphere, compared to axenic plants. In addition, we also sequenced the transcriptome of Arabidopsis 2 and 7 days after spray-infection with a low dose of P. syringae DC3000 and in combination with the commensals.