Analysis of early events in the Arabidopsis-Verticillium interaction

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Rudolf Tischner
• Subject Area: Plant Physiology
• Term: from 2007 to 2010
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 30286126

Verticilium longisporum is a soil born fungus, which infects Brassicaceae in a compatible interaction and causes significant losses in the yield of several crops. The fungus infects the roots and stays in the xylem causing a wild disease. In the xylem conidia are formed and these spread into the shoot carried by the transpiration stream. However, plugging the xylem is a late event, there are signals produced either by the plant or the fungus that cause earlier incidents. The analyses currently available focus on events more than 2 weeks after inoculation. Advanced flowering, degradation of Rubisco and chlorosis were measured using the pathosystem Arabidopsis/V. dahliae, but the symptoms observed did not correlate with the fungal tissue colonization. This led us to ask, if much earlier events in the infection with the fungus can be found maybe even before the germination of the conidia. Our hypothesis postulates that already the contact between the roots and the conidia is sufficient to initiate responses of the plant tissue. These responses include NO synthesis. We established a sterile pathogen system where a distinct number of conidia (V. longisporum) get in contact with a well-defined number of plants for a controlled period of time. We want to focus on changes in the protein pattern of the soluble fraction and the plasma membrane. We are planning to analyse the responses of Arabidopsis wild type and mutants (with defects in NO-, ethylene-, salicylic acid- and jasmonate ¿ dependent signalling) to the contact with the conidia.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants