CAREER: Understand effector biology in the species complex Fusarium oxysporum

病原真菌对农业生产构成严重威胁。尖孢镰刀菌（Fusarium oxysporum）是一种子囊真菌，已知其在包括番茄、棉花、西瓜和香蕉在内的100多种植物物种中引起维管枯萎病，导致数十亿美元的年产量损失。Ma实验室的长期目标是了解镰刀菌致病和植物防御的分子机制，以开发抗病作物。本CAREER项目将研究F.尖孢霉和植物防御利用建立F.尖孢菌-拟南芥病理系统。对这种重要病原体的深入了解将为土传真菌与植物宿主之间的相互作用提供新的见解。植物对真菌病原体防御的先进知识将促进持久抗病作物的开发。因此，这项研究有可能改变世界范围内许多遭受枯萎病的重要作物的疾病管理。使用从这个研究计划产生的数据和假设，PI将开发一个基于课程的本科研究经验（CURE）作为本科课程的一部分，在马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校和多米尼加学院，教学密集的大学，其学生是40%的第一代大学生，66%的女性和40%以上的少数民族学生。学生的参与也将为拟议的研究带来新鲜的思想，增加可重复性和推进科学。真菌效应子操纵宿主免疫力，并对真菌-植物关系的结果做出重大贡献，从致病到互利。这个职业生涯项目将研究F。尖孢菌效应子生物学采用多种方法，包括计算生物学、反向遗传学、定量生物物理学和实时图像分析。具体而言，该项目将首先使用反向遗传学（目标1）表征300个候选效应子的功能。然后，将使用定量生物物理学和活细胞成像来监测功能上重要的效应物以追踪效应物运输（目的2）。最后，该项目将通过网络建模（目标3）剖析效应调控。按照逐步的方法，该项目将通过一个大型数据集进行漏斗，并最终集中在一些重要的效应器上。该项目建立在跨学科合作的基础上，将定量生物物理学引入真菌效应生物学的研究。这种方法将提供前所未有的，定量和透明的信息，在细胞和分子水平上的真菌效应子和它们的宿主植物细胞之间的相互作用。这个CAREER项目的主要教育目标是创建一个本科课程，让学生测试目标3中产生的假设，并通过将ChIPseq整合到我们的本科课程中，将真实的研究带入本科教育。

Pathogenic fungi pose serious threats to agricultural productivity. Fusarium oxysporum, an ascomycete fungus, is known to cause vascular wilt in over 100 plant species, including tomato, cotton, watermelon and banana, resulting in billions of dollars annual yield loss. The Ma lab's long-term goal is to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying Fusarium pathogenesis and plant defense for the development of disease resistant crops. This CAREER project will study both pathogenesis of F. oxysporum and plant defense using an established F. oxysporum - Arabidopsis pathosystem. A deeper understanding of this important pathogen will provide novel insights into interactions between soil-borne fungi and plant hosts. The advanced knowledge of plants defense against fungal pathogens will facilitate the development of durable disease-resistant crops. Therefore the research has the potential to transform world-wide disease management of many important crops that suffer from Fusarium wilts. Using the data and hypotheses generated from this research program, the PI will develop a Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) as part of the undergraduate curriculum at both UMass Amherst and Dominican College, a teaching intense college, whose students are 40% first generation college students, 66% women and over 40% minority students. Student participation will also bring fresh minds into the proposed research, increase the reproducibility and advance science. Fungal effectors manipulate host immunity and contribute significantly to the outcomes of fungal-plant relationships, ranging from pathogenic to mutualistic. This CAREER project will study F. oxysporum effector biology taking diverse approaches that include computational biology, reverse genetics, quantitative biophysics and live image analysis. Specifically, this project will first characterize function of 300 candidate effectors using reverse genetics (Aim 1). Then, functionally important effectors will be monitored to trace effector trafficking using quantitative biophysics and live cell imaging (Aim 2). Finally the project will dissect effector regulation through network modeling (Aim 3). Following a step-wise approach, this project will funnel through a large dataset and finally focus on a few important effectors. Built on an interdisciplinary collaboration, the project will introduce quantitative biophysics into the investigation of fungal effector biology. This approach will provide unprecedented, quantitative and transparent information at the cellular and molecular level on the interactions between fungal effectors and their host plant cells. A major Educational Objective of this CAREER project is to create an undergraduate course in which students test hypotheses generated in Aim 3 and bring authentic research into undergraduate education by integrating ChIPseq into our undergraduate curriculum.