Project description:Drought is one of the most detrimental environmental factors that adversely affect crop production, thus jeopardizing food supplies for a growing world population. Over the past years, it has become evident that microorganisms associated with plants can enhance drought tolerance. However, the specific genetic and molecular mechanisms underpinning bacterial induction of drought tolerance in plants are still largely unknown. In our work, we have shown that a root endophytic Flavobacterium sp. 98 confers significant drought tolerance to Arabidopsis thaliana without compromising growth and yield. Here, we compared the transcriptome of Arabidopsis seedlings inoculated with Flavobacterium or mock (time series) to identify transcription reprograming induced by Flavo in plants.
Project description:Cereal aphids can successfully colonize and damage switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) plants. Among the aphids tested, greenbugs (Schizaphis graminum, GB) caused significant plant damage likely through a combination of aphid-salivary proteins that are injected into plants during feeding and a strong host response elicited by herbivory. In this study, changes in protein phosphorylation present in GB-infested and uninfested control plants was determined. These data were compared against transcriptome changes recently published for this system.
