Project description:Acute Oak Decline (AOD) is a decline-disease currently spreading in Britain, threatening oak trees. Here, we analyze and compare the proteomes of inner bark tissue sampled from oak stems of trees symptomatic with AOD and non-symptomatic trees.
Project description:Seedlings grown from seeds from open-pollinated mother trees of genotype UF12 were grown and at two months of age used to analyze response to treatment with the fungal pathogen Colletotrichum theobromicola and the oomycete pathogen Phytophthora palmivora.
Project description:Expression diversity of P. ramorum isolates belonging to the NA1 clonal lineage growing on solid CV8 was examined. We found that phenotypes and transcriptomes change when isolates were passing through oak trees.
Project description:Using data from acorns produced by mature oak trees in the eighth year of elevated CO2 (eCO₂), we present evidence that similar effects occur in long-established forests, with negative consequences for seed quality, that impact herbivore nutrition and health. The analysis of acorns from the near-200-year-old oak trees at the Free Air Carbon dioxide (FACE) facility at the Birmingham Institute for Forest Research (BIFoR) revealed that growth under eCO₂ increased the phytate content but decreased the protein content of acorns. Additionally the analysis of protin profiles showed significant differnves in protein abundances in both typoe of samples.
Project description:Sphaerulina musiva is an economically and ecologically important fungal pathogen that causes Septoria stem canker and leaf spot disease of Populus species. To bridge the gap between genetic markers and structural barriers previously found to be linked to Septoria canker disease resistance in poplar, we used hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry to identify and quantify metabolites involved with signaling and cell wall remodeling. Fluctuations in signaling molecules, organic acids, amino acids, sterols, phenolics, and saccharides in resistant and susceptible P. trichocarpa inoculated with S. musiva were observed. The patterns of 222 metabolites in the resistant host implicate systemic acquired resistance (SAR), cell wall apposition, and lignin deposition as modes of resistance to this hemibiotrophic pathogen. This pattern is consistent with the expected response to the biotrophic phase of S. musiva colonization during the first 24 h postinoculation. The fungal pathogen metabolized key regulatory signals of SAR, other phenolics, and precursors of lignin biosynthesis that were depleted in the susceptible host. This is the first study to characterize metabolites associated with the response to initial colonization by S. musiva between resistant and susceptible hosts.
The work (proposal:https://doi.org/10.46936/10.25585/60000891) conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (https://ror.org/04xm1d337), a DOE Office of Science User Facility, is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.
Project description:Protein lysine acetylation, a dynamic and reversible posttranslational modification, plays a crucial role in several cellular processes including cell cycle regulation, metabolic pathways, enzymatic activities and protein interactions. Brenneria nigrifluens is the pathogen of shallow bark canker of walnut trees and can cause serious disease on walnut trees. Up to now, it is little known about the roles of lysine acetylation in the plant pathogenic bacteria. In the present study, the lysine acetylome of B. nigrifluens was determined by high-resolution LC-MS/MS analysis. In total, we identified 1,866 lysine acetylation sites distributed in 737 acetylated proteins. Bioinformatics results indicate that acetylated proteins participate in many different biological functions in B. nigrifluens. Four conserved motifs, namely, LKac, Kac*F, I*Kac and L*Kac, were identified in this bacterium. Protein interaction network analysis indicates that all kinds of interactions are modulated by protein lysine acetylation. Overall, 14 acetylated proteins are related to the virulence of B. nigrifluens.
Project description:Leptosphaeria maculans, causal agent of stem canker disease, colonises oilseed rape (Brassica napus) in two stages: a short and early colonisation stage corresponding to cotyledon or leaf colonisation, and a late colonisation stage during which the fungus colonises systemically and symptomlessly the plant during several months before stem canker appears. To date, determinants of the late colonisation stage are poorly understood; L. maculans may either successfully escape plant defences leading to the stem canker development, or the plant can develop an “adult-stage” resistance reducing canker incidence. To get insight into these determinants, we performed an RNA-seq pilot project comparing fungal gene expression in infected cotyledons and in symptomless and necrotic stems. Despite the low fraction of fungal material in infected stems, enough fungal transcripts were detected and a large portion of fungal genes were expressed, thus validating the feasibility of the approach. Our analysis showed that all avirulence genes previously identified are under-expressed during stem colonisation compared to cotyledon colonisation. A validation RNA-seq experiment was then done to investigate the expression of candidate effector genes during systemic colonisation. 307 "late" effector candidates, under-expressed in the early colonisation stage and over-expressed in the infected stems, were identified. Finally our analysis revealed a link between regulation of expression of effectors and their genomic location: the late effector candidates, putatively involved in the systemic colonisation, are located in gene-rich genomic regions, whereas the "early" effector genes, over-expressed in the early colonisation stage, are located in gene-poor regions of the genome.