Investigating fungal pathogen effector localisation within plant cells

研究植物细胞内真菌病原体效应器的定位

• 批准号: 2879242
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2879242
• 关键词: Investigating; fungal; pathogen; effector; localisation

Ensuring global food security for the ever-growing world's population is a major concern. Fungal pathogensdestroy a substantial amount of all food crops each year (~15%). Cereal head blight diseases of wheat caused byvarious Fusarium fungi are particularly serious (Dean et al., 2012). These pathogens secrete effectorproteins that manipulate the host to promote infection. Some effectors were predicted to enter host organelles using software tools that search for sequence signaturesassociated with subcellular targeting. However, these prediction might not be accurate as only for a few fungaleffectors has their subcellular localisation been validated. Robust predictions are required to identify virulencechanges in the pathogen population associated with differences in effector host subcellular localisation. We will use multiple software tools to perform an in-silico meta-analytic prediction of the secretome of multipleFusarium graminearum strains and identify effectors likely to have host subcellular localisation before validating thesepredictions in the laboratory using in planta expression and confocal microscopy. Validated localisation data will beused to improve the accuracy of prediction tools. Then the plant protein targets from some effectors will beidentified by co-immunoprecipitation or proximity labelling followed by mass spectrometry. Plant targetsidentification will allow the elucidation of effector function(s). This new knowledge will permit the student and theadvisory team to devise new F. graminearum control strategies. The project is multidisciplinary with strong mathematical, computational biology and imaging components. The studentwill spend the first six months at Rothamsted Research (RRes) undertaking initial research training inbioinformatics, cloning techniques, bioimaging and specific taught courses. Subsequently, the student will transfer to theUniversity for a further research training period, before returning to RRes for the remainder of the PhD project. TheUniversity of Bath will be involved and will provide training in genomic approaches and analyses. The advisory teamincludes Drs Nutzmann (lead University supervisor) and Brown (2nd University supervisor) and at RRes Drs Darino, Smithand Urban and Prof. Hammond-Kosack (main supervisor). The student will have access to world class research facilitiesand will receive outstanding interdisciplinary training from their advisory team.

确保不断增长的世界人口的全球粮食安全是一个重大关切。真菌病原体每年破坏大量的粮食作物（约15%）。由各种镰刀菌属真菌引起的小麦的谷物穗枯病特别严重（Dean et al.，2012年）。这些病原体分泌效应蛋白，操纵宿主促进感染。一些效应物被预测进入宿主细胞器，使用软件工具搜索与亚细胞靶向相关的序列特征。然而，这些预测可能不准确，因为只有少数真菌效应子的亚细胞定位得到验证。需要强有力的预测来确定与效应宿主亚细胞定位差异相关的病原体群体中的毒力变化。我们将使用多种软件工具来进行多种禾谷镰刀菌菌株的分泌组的计算机荟萃分析预测，并在实验室中使用植物表达和共聚焦显微镜验证这些预测之前，确定可能具有宿主亚细胞定位的效应物。经验证的本地化数据将用于提高预测工具的准确性。然后通过免疫共沉淀或邻近标记结合质谱技术来鉴定来自某些效应子的植物蛋白靶点。植物靶标鉴定将允许阐明效应子功能。这些新知识将允许学生和顾问团队设计新的F。禾谷镰刀菌防治策略该项目是多学科的，具有强大的数学，计算生物学和成像组件。学生在Rothamsted Research（RRes）度过前六个月，进行生物信息学，克隆技术，生物成像和特定教学课程的初步研究培训。随后，学生将转移到大学进行进一步的研究培训，然后返回RRES进行博士项目的剩余部分。巴斯大学将参与其中，并将提供基因组方法和分析方面的培训。咨询团队包括Nutzmann博士（大学主管）和Brown博士（第二大学主管），以及RRes的Darino博士、Smithand Urban和Hammond-Kosack教授（主要主管）。学生将有机会使用世界一流的研究设施，并将接受他们的咨询团队提供的出色的跨学科培训。