Plant and Microbial Biology Plant Seminar: "Cellular basis of immunity"

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Wednesday, November 08, 2017

A paradigm for more than a decade, it has been known that host membranes respond to pathogen perception. It is now clear that the secretory and endocytic trafficking network are engaged by the plant’s immune system to actively defend against potential pathogens. Reciprocally, invasive pathogens have evolved means to utilize these trafficking pathways for the suppression of plant defences and to promote microbial proliferation.

Robatzek is particularly interested to understand how host membranes and their cargoes such as the flagellin receptor FLS2 and other pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) are transported through the cell: how this is regulated, how this contributes to PRR abundance control and thus how it regulates defence activation, for example at the level of pathogen-regulated stomatal movements.