Plant - pathogen interactions
Throughout the evolution of vascular plants, coexistence with both harmful and beneficial microbes has led to the development of increasingly complex defence and recognition systems in the plant.
Plants are generally resistant to the majority of pathogen species, and are at the same time allowing interactions with beneficial microbes such as for example mycorrhizal fungi or nitrogen-fixing bacteria. The pathogens have in their turn found ways to avoid recognition and have developed counter-defence systems to cope with or manipulate the host’s defence responses at different levels. Understanding these interactions between pathogen and host on a molecular level is one of the main goals of plant pathology, which in the long run will help us design optimal management strategies for each disease.
Swimming zoospores of Phytophthora pisi accumulating at a pea root tip (photo by Fredrik Heyman).
The different molecules that the pathogens use to manipulate the plant during infection are collectively called effectors. We are interested in when and how these are produced, and their function in the plant. Comparisons among pathogens of effector related genes can give us important insights in how pathogens evolve and new pathogens and diseases arise.
Our projects:
Secreted proteins in fungal parasitic interactions for feed, food and non-food industry
Contact person: Dan Funck Jensen
A new root rot of pea caused by Phytophthora sp.
Contact person: Fredrik Heyman
Secreted proteins in oomycete-host interactions.
Contact person: Fredrik Heyman
Three way interactions between Fusarium species, their plant hosts and biocontrol organisms.
Contact person: Chatchai Kosawang