Identification and precise gene editing of wheat and barley susceptibility factors to generate disease resistant crops against powdery mildew and rust fungi.

About the Project

Powdery mildews (PMs) and rusts are prevalent plant diseases that compromise the production of many valuable food and horticultural crops, including wheat and barley. As biotrophic pathogenic fungi, PMs and rusts produce specific structures called haustoria, that are essential for infection, are involved in nutrient uptake and the production of virulence factors and effectors to allow these biotrophic pathogens to invade and proliferate on living host cells. Moreover, an extrahaustorial membrane is produced by the plant around the haustorium, where plant proteins are recruited for modulating either host susceptibility or immunity.

The aim of this project is to investigate further the core proteome of powdery mildew (PM) and rust haustoria, to understand the molecular interplay governing host susceptibility required for fungal infection. Ultimately, the discovery of host susceptibility genes will be instrumental to the design of new crop protection strategies, using precision gene editing.

Using proteomics, transcriptomics, and functional genomics, similarly to work published for barley PM (Bindschedler et al, 2009, 2011; Lambertucci et al, 2019, Spanu et al, 2010; Pedersen et al, 2012; Bindschedler et al, 2016), this research will focus in identifying proteins that are commonly associated with haustorial structures across various PM and rust pathogen species affecting crops such as wheat, barley, zucchini or bean to identify proteins associated with the plant extrahaustorial membrane Using functional genomics tools and bioinformatics, haustoria associated protein candidates will be further assessed for their role in host susceptibility or resistance. For this, an RNAi derived transient gene silencing approach has been devised to validate gene candidates, as was shown to silence the barley MLO generequired for susceptibility to barley PM (Lambertucci et al, 2019). Transient protein expression in cucurbit or bean plants using agroinfiltration will also allow further characterisation of promising gene candidates. Morevoer, successful gene candidates will be edited, in an attempt to generate barley or wheat plant resistant to various fungi, such as powdery mildew, rusts, and fusarium head blight.

Research Objectives:

• Proteomics identification of proteins associated with haustoria /extrahaustorial membrane from PM and rusts from various crops .
• Functional genomics for validation of haustoria associated susceptibility factors using transient gene silencing or Agrobacterium overexpression assays coupled with disease scoring.
• Design of susceptibility gene edited barley, likely to be resistant to PM and rust fungi. These plants will be further characterised for resistance to other fungal pathogen.

We are looking for candidates with a BSc (2:1) or MRes in biological sciences, biochemistry or equivalent, with basic knowledge in molecular biology and interest in plant sciences / molecular plant pathology. Basic knowledge in analytical chemistry, proteomics, mass spectrometry, is desirable but not essential.

The project will be supervised by Dr Laurence Bindschedler.

For informal enquiries and further information on how to apply, please provide your CV and contact Dr Laurence Bindschedler via email Laurence.Bindschedler@rhul.ac.uk.