Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy to Investigate Cellular Dynamics in Host-Pathogen Interactions

下个世纪的两大全球挑战将是如何确保全球粮食安全和如何应对威胁生态系统健康的新出现的疾病。研究表明，真菌是对人类的主要威胁，因为没有其他种类的病原体比真菌对农作物更致命。真菌病每年造成农作物持续损失10%-12%，在流行年份损失更大。因此，真菌疾病摧毁了我们的收成，并导致广泛的营养不良和饥饿。随着全球气候变化加速地理传播和感染植物的种类，疾病的负担正在增加。埃克塞特大学已经确立了自己作为真菌相关植物病害研究卓越中心的地位。我们的追求是更好地了解水稻、玉米和小麦与它们各自的真菌病原体之间的密切关系，因为这些作物占据了全球约40%的农田。我们将提供稻瘟菌、小麦病原菌和玉米黑粉菌的技术知识，以便更好地了解真菌和它们的寄主在第一次发现冲突的界面上的动态交换。埃克塞特大学目前提供了许多技术设施来支持他们的研究并迎接这一挑战。然而，缺乏能够快速、灵敏地对受感染植物组织中的病原体进行活细胞成像的高端设备。近年来，这项技术使欧盟的植物病理学家能够研究寄主植物和入侵病原菌之间的通信。在这项申请中，我们寻求支持购买现代共聚焦激光扫描显微镜，这将补充埃克塞特生物成像中心的现有设施。

Two of the major global challenges for the next century will be how to ensure global food security and how to contend with emerging diseases which threaten ecosystem health. It emerges that fungi are a major threat to mankind, as no other group of pathogens are more deadly to crop plants than fungi. Fungal disease accounts for persistent crop losses of 10-12% each year and substantially higher losses in epidemic years. Consequently, fungal diseases decimate our harvests and cause widespread malnutrition and starvation. The burden of disease is increasing as global climate change hastens the geographic spread and the variety of plants infected. The University of Exeter has established itself as a centre of fungal-related plant disease research excellence. Our quest is to better understand the intimacy of the relationship between rice, maize and wheat and their respective fungal pathogens, as these crops occupy some 40% of our global crop-land. We will provide technical knowledge from our work on the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae, the wheat pathogen Mycosphaerella graminicola and the maize smut fungus Ustilago maydis to gain a better insight into the dynamic exchanges between fungi and their hosts at the interface where they first find conflict. Exeter University currently provides many technical facilities to support their research and to meet this challenge. However, lacking is high-end equipment that allows fast, sensitive live-cell imaging of the pathogen in infected plant tissue. In recent years, this technology has enabled plant-pathologists in the EU to investigate the communication between host plant and the invading pathogen. In this application we seek support to purchase a modern confocal laser scanning microscopy, which will complement the existing facilities at the Exeter Bioimaging Centre.