Summary
MANIPULATION OF PLANT IMMUNITY AND AUTOPHAGY BY PATHOGENS
Many filamentous plant pathogens including fungi and oomycetes are accommodated within the host cells through specialized cellular structures. For instance, some filamentous plant pathogens form specialized infection structures termed haustoria to deliver effector proteins that can modulate host immunity or mediate nutrient uptake. However, little is known about molecular mechanisms underlying microbial accommodation inside the plant cells. Our aim is to characterize the host processes required for accommodation of filamentous plant pathogens inside the plant cells with a specific focus on illustrating the role of plant endomembrane transport system and identify perturbations caused by the pathogens.
These processes have been difficult to dissect using standard genetic approaches due to overlap between focal immunity and plant development. We recently discovered that some of the Pathogen secreted effectors specifically accumulate around haustoria (perihaustorial effectors) and provide an excellent alternative to study plant focal immunity (Bozkurt et al., 2011, Saunders et al., 2012).
We deploy perihaustorial effectors as molecular probes and use a multifaceted approach including cell biology, biochemical and genetic methods to investigate the mechanisms and perturbations in host endomembrane system within the plant cells that accommodate haustoria.
More recently, our work on effector biology shed light on how plant pathogens manipulate autophagy to enable infection. This work highlighted the extensive remodeling of endomembrane compartments during plant-microbe interactions and opened up novel perspectives in understanding the role of autophagy in plant immunity.
Model pathosystem
We mainly use haustoria forming oomycete pathogens such as Phytophthora infestans and Peronospora tabacina as well as some fungal species, which can infect the model solanaceous plant Nicotiana benthamiana.
If you are interested in joining the lab please contact o.bozkurt@imperial.ac.uk.
Publications
Journals
Yuen ELH, Shepherd S, Bozkurt TO, 2023, Traffic Control: Subversion of Plant Membrane Trafficking by Pathogens., Annu Rev Phytopathol, Vol:61, Pages:325-350
Moratto E, Rothery S, Bozkurt TO, et al., 2023, Enhanced germination and electrotactic behaviour of Phytophthora palmivora zoospores in weak electric fields, Physical Biology, Vol:20, ISSN:1478-3967, Pages:1-10
Shepherd S, Yuen ELH, Carella P, et al., 2023, The wheels of destruction: Plant NLR immune receptors are mobile and structurally dynamic disease resistance proteins., Curr Opin Plant Biol, Vol:74
Contreras MP, Pai H, Selvaraj M, et al., 2023, Resurrection of plant disease resistance proteins via helper NLR bioengineering., Sci Adv, Vol:9
Ibrahim T, Khandare V, Mirkin FG, et al., 2023, AlphaFold2-multimer guided high-accuracy prediction of typical and atypical ATG8-binding motifs, Plos Biology, Vol:21, ISSN:1544-9173, Pages:1-19