| Title of Project |
| Investigation of diversity in environmental Pseudomonas syringae in Prunus spp |
| This project going to be… |
| Experimental (lab/field) |
| Full Name of Supervisor |
| Ziyue Zeng |
| Institution Department and Address |
| NIAB, 93 Lawrence Weaver Road Cambridge, Cambridgeshire CB3 0LE United Kingdom Map It |
| Telephone |
| 07729892836 |
| ziyue.zeng@niab.com |
| Position held |
| Postdoctoral Researcher |
| Full name of the day to day supervisor and/or arrangements for supervision |
| Ziyue Zeng
The students will receive day-to-day supervision and will have regular meetings with their supervisor and mentor. The first meeting in week 1 will ensure the student is familiar with the work environment, is provided with project details, and complete all necessary induction and health and safety training/documentation. |
| Date of Project Commencement |
| 02/05/2022 |
| Duration (weeks) |
| 10 |
| Brief Description of Project |
| Background information: Pseudomonas syringae (P. syringae) is a globally important plant pathogen that has been reported to cause diseases on over 180 plant species, cherry included. P. syringae can infect and cause canker symptoms on the stems, branches, twigs, fruits, leaves, buds and blossoms of cherry trees, resulting in damage to trees, reduction of yields and low-quality or unsalable fruit. Despite many advances in disease control, P. syringae remains of great concern to the security of cherry production. Importantly there are many different strains (called pathovars) of Pseudomonas that can cause disease on cherry and very few cultivars have resistance to all known pathovars. The overall aim of our project is to provide fundamental insights into how new strains of pathogens emerge and evolve on potential hosts using P. syringae as an exemplar. This work will lead to improved design of control methods and new precision in risk monitoring tools.Project objective: To understand P. syringae population similarity and stability over distance, time and environment on and in the leaves of Prunus spp.Experimental plan: • Environmental bacterial isolation from defined sampling sites working within a team • Bacterial strain purification, identification and characterisation • DNA extraction and genome sequencing of key isolates of Pseudomonas • Analysis of bacterial lineage persistence and diversityExpected learning outcomes: The student will learn microbiology, molecular biology and basic web-based bioinformatics skills. Specifically: • Environmental bacterial strain isolation and identification • PCR and agarose gel electrophoresis • Bacterial pathogenicity test • DNA extraction, DNA library preparation and sequencing • Growth and care of cherry plants in glasshouse |
| Attach the recommended reading for the project |
| https://doi.org/10.1111/ppa.13189 https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.15182 https://doi.org/10.1111/ppa.12834 |
