TurboID-charging discovery of plant pathogen virulence and host resistance mechanisms

ended

"Extensive studies in the field of Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions (MPMI) show that pathogens inject virulence factors (""effectors"") into host cells to manipulate host proteins and promote pathogen success. Recognition of effectors or their modified host proteins by plant intracellular receptors can activate immune responses. Identification of effector-host interactor (host target and intracellular receptor) pairs remains challenging. A more sensitive and specific approach to define effector-host interactor pairs would greatly accelerate discovery in plant-microbe interactions. Proximity labelling (PL) with biotin (""BioID"") provides a novel method to detect proteins in the vicinity of a tagged protein. Taking advantage of the recently developed (""TurboID"") allele that is highly active at ambient plant temperatures, the main goals of this project are to: 1) establish a sensitive and specific method (TurboID-based PL-MS) to identify effector-host interactor pairs; 2) use this method to identify host targets of 6 CCG effectors of oomycete Albugo candida that confer immune suppression to Arabidopsis; 3) isolate host target transcription factor TCP14-interacting effectors from pathogens from three taxonomic kingdoms, and to identify intracellular receptors CHS3 (Chilling sensitive 3)-interacting effectors. The method proposed here will break the bottleneck of defining effector-host interactor pairs and dramatically accelerate discovery in plant-microbe interactions. The identification of CCG effector targets will shed light on the strong immune suppression capacity of A. candida. My MSCA is a great opportunity for me to build on my previous international mobility from China to Canada and now to the UK, by undertaking advanced multidisciplinary ‘training-through-research’ at TSL. I shall benefit from broad technical and transferrable skills training alongside many dissemination opportunities to boost my professional visibility, leadership capacity and employability."