Master manipulators: How pathogens use effectors to cause disease

植物病害是对粮食生产的持续威胁。它们是在气候变化背景下实现全球粮食安全的主要制约因素。许多植物疾病是由病原体引起的，病原体将被称为效应子的蛋白质递送到宿主细胞中以操纵宿主功能以使病原体受益。研究病原体效应蛋白的功能对于了解疾病的基础生物学至关重要，但也提供了干扰疾病进展和维持健康植物/作物以养活世界的新机会。在这个项目中，学生将研究谷物杀手Magnaporthe grasses是如何利用效应子引起禾本科作物（包括水稻、小麦和大麦）的稻瘟病的。从M.将使用各种生物化学和生物物理技术在体外和植物组织中研究植物生长。该项目将确定来自植物的选定效应物的宿主细胞靶标，并（1）使用生物化学和结构方法探索相互作用的细节，（2）调查突变（缺失和点突变）对病原体在植物上引起疾病的能力的影响。

Plant diseases are a continuous threat to food production. They are a major constraint on achieving global food security against the background of climate change. Many plant diseases are caused by pathogens that deliver proteins known as effectors into host cells to manipulate host function for the benefit of the pathogen. Studying the function of pathogen effector proteins is essential to understanding the fundamental biology underpinning disease, but also provides new opportunities to interfere with disease progression and maintaining healthy plants/crops to feed the world. In this project, the student will investigate how the cereal killer Magnaporthe oryzae uses effectors to cause blast disease of grass crops including rice, wheat and barley. A set of novel effectors from M. oryzae will be studied using a variety of biochemical and biophysical techniques both in vitro and in plant tissue. The project will identify the host cell targets of selected effectors from plants, and (1) probe the details of interactions using biochemical and structural approaches, (2) investigate the impact of mutation (deletion and point mutations) on the ability of the pathogen to cause disease on plants.