Research in the laboratory

Research in the laboratory is aimed at understanding the molecular basis of plant disease. Plant pathogenic micro-organisms have evolved specific developmental and physiological programmes to infect plants, and subvert their metabolism. The research group works primarily on plant pathogenic fungi and in particular the economically important rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae as a model organism for understanding pathogenicity. Rice blast is the most serious disease of cultivated rice and therefore knowledge gained about this fungus can be applied to a disease of critical importance to the global food supply.

Experimental approaches

Our research is currently focused on identifying and characterizing genes involved in infection-related development and which are necessary for the fungus to colonise living plant tissues. We are also systematically analysing genome sequence of Magnaporthe grisea and carrying out comparative genomic analysis with related pathogenic and free-living fungi. The research group uses a wide variety of experimental strategies to study rice blast disease, which include cell biology, ultrastructural characterization, molecular genetics, high throughput gene functional analysis, bioinformatics, transcriptional profiling, proteomics and most recently of all, metabolomics.

Laboratory Infrastructure

We have a very large containment level 2 laboratory in the Geoffrey Pope Building capable of housing up to 50 researchers. We share this state-of-the-art laboratory, which opened in 2007, with the research groups of Professor Murray Grant, who works on plant defence signalling and Dr Chris Thornton, who works on both human and plant pathogenic fungi and rhizosphere biology. We share common interests in the molecular basis of plant disease and how plants resist infections. Walk-in growth chambers are available for rice cultivation and propagation of Magnaporthe oryzae and the laboratory is well equipped for molecular genetics, protein biochemistry and genomics research. We have access to a new glasshouse complex for transgenic rice cultivation which opened in 2010. Robotic workstations are available for DNA extraction and high throughput preparation of PCR/DNA sequencing reactions. Our laboratory houses an Illumina GA2 next generation DNA sequencer, which we are using in comparative genomics experiments with M. oryzae. The School has excellent bio-imaging facilities under the direction of Professor Gero Steinberg, with a new Jeol 1400 transmission electron microscope, Jeol scanning electron microscope, Zeiss laser confocal microscope and Olympus/Visitron laser excitation epifluorescence microscopes, all purchased in 2007-08. Proteomics and metabolomics facilities (Agilent Q-ToF-MS) are also available in the School and extensive bioinformatics infrastructure is in place.

Latest Updates

New publication

Richards, T.A., Soanes, D.M., Jones, M.D., Vasieva, O., Leonard, G., Paszkiewicz, K., Foster, P.G., Hall, N., Talbot, N.J. (2011) Horizontal gene transfer facilitated the evolution of plant parasitic mechanisms in the oomycetes. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. Aug 30.

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Posted on (12/9/2011)

New publication

Amselem, J., Cuomo, C.A., van Kan, J.A., Viaud, M., Benito, E.P., Couloux, A. et al. (2011) Genomic analysis of the necrotrophic fungal pathogens Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and Botrytis cinerea. PLoS Genet. 7: e1002230.

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Posted on (12/9/2011)

New publication

Shlezinger, N., Minz, A., Gur, Y., Hatam, I., Dagdas, Y.F., Talbot, N.J., Sharon, A. (2011) Anti-apoptotic machinery protects the necrotrophic fungus Botrytis cinerea from host-induced apoptotic-like cell death during plant infection. PLoS Pathog. 7: e1002185.

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Posted on (12/9/2011)