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Jeremy Murray

Project Leader

Disease and Stress Biology

Contact details

Tel: +44 (0)1603 450130
jeremy.murray@jic.ac.uk

Research interests

The acquisition of nitrogen and phosphate from the environment underpins sustainable agricultural practice. My research is focused two very widespread symbioses that are particularly important to agriculture. The arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) symbiosis evolved over 400 million years ago at around the same time plants started to colonize land. In AMF symbiosis the plants acquire important nutrients from the fungus including phosphate, nitrogen and water in exchange for sugar the plants produce by photosynthesis by means of intracellular structures called arbuscules. The AMF effectively extend the reach of the plant root system but rely on a supply of plant sugar for survival. The second symbiosis being studied in this research is the legume symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria (rhizobia). In the legume-rhizobia symbioses the bacteria intracellularly invade the legume roots through invaginations of the plant cell membrane called infection threads, and once inside the plant cells they fix atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia.

In both the AMF and rhizobial symbioses the microbes enter the plant cells, forming membrane bound compartments within the cells where nutrients are exchanged. This plant-controlled access to the cell is termed intracellular accommodation. In this fellowship I will take genetic and cell biological approaches to identify the components and mechanisms in the plant to study this phenomena. My current research has involved the identification of a novel plant gene, Vapyrin which is essential for both rhizobial and AMF invasion. A part of the research is directed at identifying where this protein is found within the cell, what it is doing and how it might interact with other plant proteins. Another aim is to define the ‘infectome' or the transcriptional expression domain of infected cells using deep sequencing technologies. In addition, possible commonalities between symbiont and pathogen invasion will be investigated. Finally, evolutionary aspects of the Vapyrin gene will be explored by testing to whether it is present in lupins, a plant family that has lost the ability to form AMF associations and rhizobial infection.