Two PhD positions available at the Molecular Plant Pathology group at the University of Amsterdam.
13 ต.ค. 2015259 ผู้เข้าชม18 คนที่ชอบ5 ความคิดเห็นแบ่งปันบน LinkedInแบ่งปันบน Facebookแบ่งปันบน Twitter
BestPass: Boosting plant-endophyte stability, compatibility and performance across scales
We need to increase the crop yield while reducing pesticide and use of inorganic fertiliser to meet the challenges of world population growth and climate change. Plant endophytic microorganisms can improve plant yield and enhance plant tolerance to abiotic stress as well as to pathogens under experimental conditions, but these effects are often not sufficiently stable for practical application.
How do we boost the stability and reliability of the positive effects of endophytes on plants?
We need to understand the genetic basis of beneficial interactions between crops and endophytes and extent this basis exhibits phenotypic plasticity at all interaction levels from the cellular to the field environment. This requires increasing our knowledge of the molecular mechanisms underlying the effects of endophytes, including intra and inter-kingdom exchange and distribution of resources (nutrients), signalling and possibly regulation between and inside the partners, the mutual induced production of secondary metabolites and the environmental cues which influence crop-endophyte interactions. The genetic variation and its plasticity in host and microbe will be exploited in to establish crop breeding and inoculum production processes for boosting the establishment and stability of plant-microbe mutualisms to benefit crop development, stress tolerance, pathogen resistance and quality.
In BestPass we will provide fundamental biological as well as practical knowledge about interactions between endophytes and plants. This improved understanding will pave the way for increased use of endophytes to improve sustainability and plant productivity in a reliable way.
BestPass is an International Training Network (ITN) funding by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 676480.
Project 1: How do endophytes evade host resistance while enhancing immunity?
Objectives:
Determine the resistance spectrum of endophyte colonised tomato plants and determine the changes in their transcriptome and xylem sap proteome in one, two and tri-fold interactions
Identify key genes/proteins correlated with endophyte colonization and enhanced biotic resistance and functionally characterize these genes.
Principal supervisor: Dr F.L.W. Takken, Molecular Plant Pathology, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam, f.l.w.takken@uva.nl, +3152057795
http://www.uva.nl/over-de-uva/werken-bij-de-uva/vacatures/item/15-385_phd-candidate-in-molecular-plant-pathology-i.html
Project 2: How do endophytes differ from pathogens?
Objectives:
Identify the key genetic differences between endophytic and pathogenic forms of the fungus Fusarium oxysporum, with a particular focus on genes for small secreted proteins
Determine the influence of oxysporum strains with different endophytic and pathogenic capabilities on the physiology of tomato plants (phytohormones, metabolites, enzyme activities)
Principal supervisor: Dr Martijn Rep, Molecular Plant Pathology, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam,