How does the fungal pathogen Botrytis cinerea regulate its virulence mechanisms and can we use network re-wiring for plant immunity?

我们研究了经济上重要的真菌病原体灰葡萄孢，它感染了广泛的水果和蔬菜作物，以及模式植物拟南芥。我们感兴趣的是病原体和宿主植物中复杂的分子事件，这些事件是如何被调节的，以及这些事件之间的相互作用如何决定疾病的严重程度。了解这一点将开辟新的可持续作物病害控制策略，有助于减少对化学方法的依赖。在我们的实验室中，我们结合联合收割机实验和计算生物学，并使用大规模的转录组数据和计算建模来生成调节宿主免疫力和病原体毒力的基因网络模型。这些网络预测了病原体毒力的重要转录调控因子，我们将在本项目中使用RNAi基因沉默策略进行研究，重点关注这些调控因子在不同宿主植物感染过程中的重要性。作为其攻击策略的一部分，病原体操纵宿主植物的免疫反应（通过可以沉默特定基因的小RNA）。在这个项目中，我们将首先确定病原体在感染过程中如何操纵和逃避宿主免疫。其次，我们将利用我们对宿主基因网络的了解来询问我们是否可以通过合成生物学克服这种操纵--重新连接植物基因网络，改变重要免疫基因的控制方式。该博士项目将允许候选人发展植物和病原体生长，病原体感染检测，基因分型，转录组学，分子生物学，转基因拟南芥的生成和表征，网络分析和生物信息学方面的技能。它将适合对分子植物抗病性，植物-病原体相互作用，合成生物学，生物信息学和可持续作物生产感兴趣的人。

We study the economically important fungal pathogen Botrytis cinerea which infects a broad range of fruit and vegetable crops, as well as the model plant Arabidopsis. We are interested in the complex molecular events in the pathogen and the host plant, how these are regulated and how the interaction of these determines the severity of disease. Understanding this will open up new sustainable crop disease control strategies, helping reduce reliance on chemical methods. In our lab we combine experimental and computational biology and have used large-scale transcriptome data and computational modelling to generate gene network models regulating host immunity and pathogen virulence. These networks predict important transcriptional regulators of pathogen virulence which we will investigate in this project using RNAi gene silencing strategies, focusing on the importance of these regulators during infection of different host plants. As part of their attack strategy, pathogens manipulate the host plant immune response (via small RNA which can silence specific genes). In this project, we will first identify how the pathogen manipulates and evades host immunity during infection. Second, we will use our knowledge of host gene networks to ask whether we can overcome this manipulation through synthetic biology - re-wiring of the plant gene networks, changing how vital immunity genes are controlled. This PhD project will allow candidate to develop skills in plant and pathogen growth, pathogen infection assays, genotyping, transcriptomics, molecular biology, generation and characterisation of transgenic Arabidopsis, network analysis and bioinformatics. It will suit someone with an interest in molecular plant disease resistance, plant-pathogen interaction, synthetic biology, bioinformatics, and sustainable crop production.