Developing phage therapy to reduce plant pathogen virulence

植物病原菌对粮食生产造成相当大的损失。本项目将开发一种新的生防方法，利用青枯病病原菌的噬菌体-病毒寄生体来降低植物病原性青枯病细菌的毒力。它建立在以前工作的基础上(Wang等人)。2019年自然生物技术)，其中噬菌体的功效被发现不仅基于病原体密度的降低，而且基于使抗噬菌体突变株的致病性较低的进化权衡。这个项目的关键目标是从机械上了解噬菌体抗药性如何降低病原体的毒力。您将使用实验进化来创建抗噬菌体突变体文库，并使用测序来确定与噬菌体抗药性相关的基因。用https://imean-biotech.com/开发的基因组规模模型将被用来预测噬菌体抗性突变对病原体适合度的影响。模型预测将在植物根际微宇宙中进行实验验证，重点是：1.病原菌代谢的通用性和竞争性，这是决定土壤微生物中病原菌建立的关键性状。病原菌竞争空间以定植根部的能力，这对于进入植物内部是必不可少的。这个跨学科的项目将提供实验进化、基因组学、转录学、显微镜、微生物学和植物生物学方面的广泛技能，并将利用Friman和Harper实验室建立的病原体-番茄植物系统。你还将与费拉科学的研究人员互动，费拉科学是作物保护和可持续农业的国际卓越中心

Plant pathogenic bacteria cause considerable losses to food production. This project will develop a novel biocontrol approach to reduce the virulence of plant pathogenic Ralstonia solanacearum bacterium (causative agent of bacterial wilt) using phages - viral parasites of the pathogen. It builds upon previous work (Wang et al. 2019 Nature Biotechnology), where the phage efficacy was found to be based not only on pathogen density reduction but also on evolutionary trade-offs that made phage-resistant mutants less pathogenic. The key aim of this project is to mechanistically understand how phage resistance turns pathogens less virulent.You will use experimental evolution to create a library of phage-resistant mutants and use sequencing to determine genes linked with phage resistance. Genome scale models developed with https://imean-biotech.com/ will be used to predict the effects of phage resistance mutations on pathogen fitness. Model predictions will be tested experimentally in plant rhizosphere microcosms focusing on:1. Pathogen metabolic versatility and competitiveness, which are crucial traits in determining pathogen establishment in soil microbiomes.2. Pathogen ability to compete for space to colonize roots, which is essential for getting access inside the plant.3. Pathogen ability to evade pattern-triggered or effector-triggered plant immunity within the plant.This interdisciplinary project will provide a wide range of skills in experimental evolution, genomics, transcriptomics, microscopy, microbiology and plant biology, and will take advantage of pathogen-tomato plant system established in Friman and Harper labs. You will also interact with researchers at Fera Science, which is and international centre of excellence for crop protection and sustainable agriculture