Project description:Possitive effects of plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB) inoculation on plant growth and development are dependent on interaction between bacterial strains and plant roots, which are usually the bacterial niche. Furthermore, phytohormones are key regulators of plant physiology. Ethylene is essential in plant growth and development and in response to drought. Plant sensibility to ethylene is involved in plant response to PGPB strain inoculation and plant growth promotion. We used microarrays to detail the global programme of gene expression underlying plant interaction with two different PGPB strains (isolated from arid soils in southern Spain) regarding to plant sentitivity to ethylene by tomato ethylene receptor 3 (SlETR3).
Project description:Here we have compared adult wildtype (N2) C. elegans gene expression when grown on different bacterial environments/fod sources in an effort to model naturally occuring nematode-bacteria interactions at the Konza Prairie. We hypothesize that human-induced changes to natural environments, such as the addition of nitrogen fertalizer, have effects on the bacterial community in soils and this drives downstream changes in the structure on soil bacterial-feeding nematode community structure. Here we have used transcriptional profiling to identify candidate genes involved in the interaction of nematodes and bacteria in nature.
Project description:Biological soil crusts (BSCs) are cyanobacteria-dominated microbial communities that cover extensive portions of the world’s arid and semi-arid deserts. The infrequent periods of hydration are often too short to allow for dormancy strategies based on sporulation; consequently, survival is based on the unique capabilities of vegetative cells to resuscitate from and re-enter a stress resistant dormant state, one of which is migration within the crust layers in response to hydration. In this study, we sought to characterize the events that govern the emergence of the dominant cyanobacterium from dormancy, its subsequent growth, and the events triggered by re-desiccation and a transition back to dormant state. We performed a 48 hour laboratory wetting experiment of a desert BSC and tracked the response of Microcoleus vaginatus using a whole genome transcriptional time-course including night/day periods. This allowed the identification of genes with a diel expression pattern, genes involved uniquely in the signaling after hydration and those that contribute primarily to desiccation preparation.
