Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

We study the plant immune system to understand how plants recognize and defend themselves against viral and bacterial pathogens, and how pathogens counteract these mechanisms. We study several mechanisms employed by plants to recognize and eliminate pathogens, including the interconnected, and sometimes overlapping, phenomena of RNA silencing, pattern-triggered immunity (PTI), effector-triggered immunity (ETI), and effector-triggered susceptibility (ETS). We have identified a novel antiviral mechanism based on the recognition of double-stranded RNA. We will characterize this mechanism using a combination of transcriptomics and functional assays in Arabidopsis and tobacco and investigate its effects on plant virus interactions. We have also shown that bacterial pathogens affect plant biology to their benefit by inducing a favourable microenvironment in the leaf apoplast. We will investigate how the agriculturally important pathogen Pseudomonas syringae manipulates host biology by inducing the production of abscisic acid (ABA) and inhibiting defense functions of the host chloroplast. In addition, we will investigate how this pathogen forces the plant to mobilize nutrients to the extracellular space in which it resides, to the benefit of pathogen growth. We will undertake a combination of approaches, including transcriptomics, biochemical analyses of plant metabolites and cell biology. These approach will allow us to better understand how pathogens manipulate host biology and how plants in turn counteract these effects to induce resistance to pathogens. The knowledge generated will serve to inform strategies to protect plants from losses due to pathogen infection.