Does the wheat pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici hijack host hormone signalling ?

This is one of the funded projects for our 2025 Undergraduate vacation bursary, click here to return to the list of 15 projects.

This project is going to be…	Experimental (lab/field based)
Institute	Heriot-Watt University
Project supervisor	Dr. Angela Feechan
Title of Project	Does the wheat pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici hijack host hormone signalling ?
Date of Project Commencement	19 May 2025
Duration (weeks)	8
Brief Description of Project	Septoria Tritici Blotch (STB) is an economically important disease caused by Zymoseptoria tritici which leads to around 10% wheat yield losses in the UK annually. Plant hormones play an important role in physiological and developmental processes, as well as responses to biotic and abiotic stress. Some plant pathogens can modulate host hormonal signalling to facilitate infection. This project will investigate the role of plant hormones during Zymoseptoria tritici infection in wheat. Previously we identified a novel small, secreted, protein (ZtHRLP, Zymoseptoria tritici Hormone Receptor Like Protein) expressed during the transition of Z. tritici from the biotrophic to the necrotrophic phase of wheat infection. In silico protein structural and homology analysis suggests that ZtHRLP shares homology with plant hormone receptors. It is possible that Z. tritici targets plant hormones to promote disease in wheat and employs ZtHRLP to hijack hormonal signalling.Student’s Role: This project will phenotype and characterise Arabidopsis lines which ectopically expressing ZtHRLP to explore the involvement of this candidate effector in the manipulation of plant hormone signalling. The lines will be analysed for hormone marker gene expression, disease susceptibility using the fungal pathogen Botrytis cinerea which can infect Arabidopsis and the lines will be examined using microscopy.The student will be supervised day to day by Dr. Angela Feechan and will also benefit from input from Dr. Dutta (UKRI postdoctoral fellow). The student will be lab based and work as part of our group undertaking research on fungal cereal disease and interact with the wider cereal group at Heriot-Watt University. The student will attending bi-weekly lab meetings and have the opportunity to present their research towards the end of their week placement. The student will be lab based and trained in plant pathology disease assays, microscopy and molecular techniques including: RNA extractions and real-time quantitative PCR. The data produced during this project may contribute to a publication in an international peer-refereed journal. Recommended reading for the projectChanclud, E. and Morel, J.B., 2016. Plant hormones: a fungal point of view. Molecular plant pathology, 17(8), pp.1289-1297. Karki, S.J., Reilly, A., Zhou, B., Mascarello, M., Burke, J., Doohan, F., Douchkov, D., Schweizer, P. and Feechan, A., 2021. A small secreted protein from Zymoseptoria tritici interacts with a wheat E3 ubiquitin ligase to promote disease. Journal of experimental botany, 72(2), pp.733-746.Meile, L., Carrasco-López, C., Lorrain, C., Kema, G.H., Saintenac, C. and Sanchez-Vallet, A., 2025. The molecular dialogue between Zymoseptoria tritici and wheat. Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions, pp.MPMI-08. Sánchez-Vallet, A., McDonald, M.C., Solomon, P.S. and McDonald, B.A., 2015. Is Zymoseptoria tritici a hemibiotroph?. Fungal Genetics and Biology, 79, pp.29-32.