Science Special Issue on Plant-Microbe interactions
May 2009
The journal Science recently produced a Special Issue on Plant-Microbe Interactions, and the John Innes Centre and Sainsbury Laboratory’s expertise in this area was recognised with three of the seven articles being authored by current scientists.
Anne Osbourn surveyed the latest understanding in the chemical diversity in plant defence compounds. Plants produce a wide array of different phytochemicals to defend against pathogenic bacteria, but wider roles in signalling and plant growth are now being uncovered.
Anne’s own work on metabolic diversification and plant defence is also revolutionising our understanding of the evolutionary forces that shape plant genomes and niche adaptation.
Giles Oldroyd contributed to an article on the mutually beneficial interactions between plants and microbes, such as in the nitrogen-fixing nodules of legumes and the mycorrhizal symbiotic interactions of most flowering plants.
Giles has led groundbreaking research on the signalling between plants and microbes that trigger the developmental changes needed to accommodate the symbiotic mechanism. This involves signalling molecules produced by both the microorganism and the plant, and are crucial to maintaining the reciprocal exchange of nutrients.
One mechanism by which pathogens overcome plant defences involves manipulating hormone signalling. Jonathan Jones (with Murray Grant, of Exeter University) reviewed previously unsuspected roles of plant hormone signalling in plant defence and susceptibility. His group in the Sainsbury Laboratory has unravelled several such molecular interactions between pathogens and plants.
The special edition of Science also included a paper by John Rathjen’s group in the Sainsbury Laboratory on the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato which causes bacterial speck disease on susceptible tomato cultivars.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol324/issue5928/index.dtl
