| This project going to be… | Experimental (lab/field based)/Remote/virtual |
| Email | sara.francoortega@york.ac.uk |
| Position held | Postdoctoral Research Associate |
| Title of Project | Fighting against bacterial wilt disease in tomatoes |
| Institution Department and Address | Department of Biology, University of York |
| Heslington, York ., North Yorkshire YO105DD |
| United Kingdom |
| Full Name of Supervisor | Sara Franco Ortega |
| Date of Project Commencement | 26/06/2023 |
| Duration (weeks) | 10 |
| Brief Description of Project | Ralstonia solanacearum is one of the two most important plant pathogenic bacteria worldwide, able to infect and cause disease in more than 200 plant species of more than 50 plant families. This bacterium is especially deadly to the Solanaceae, such as tomatoes causing bacterial wilt disease, and potatoes causing brown rot. It is transmitted via contaminated soil and water and due to causing high yield losses, it is also included in the A2 list of quarantine pathogens of the European Plant Protection Organization (EPPO). Obtaining environmentally friendly and sustainable solutions as part of an integrative pest management approach is the key to controlling this pathogen. Recent interest has been put into priming plants against biotic stresses. Priming plants consist in activating or enhancing the plant’s immune response so it will respond quicker and/or stronger to posterior infections, in a similar way to a vaccine for humans. Activation of the immune response of the plant can have a massive trade-off in terms of yields, however, priming does not cause the same trade-off as it does not affect the constitutive expression of proteins but instead create an “alert state” that is based in epigenetic changes in the DNA. Priming can be induced by abiotic, biotic stressors, chemical compounds such as BABA (β-Aminobutyric acid) or plant-growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPRs) that are present in the soil. This project will be focused on identifying any potential PGPRs starting by analysing the 16S metabarcoding data of tomatoes infected with Ralstonia. Then, PGPRs such as Pseudomonas spp. will be isolated from the soil using selective media. The isolates will be identified by using microbiological features, PCR and Sanger sequencing. Any potential biocontrol against Ralstonia will be tested in vitro. Potential virulence of the isolates will be tested in tomato plants and non-pathogenic isolates will be used to test the priming effect against Ralstonia by infecting the plants with the PGPR and then with Ralstonia, and evaluating bacterial wilt symptoms. This project’s main objective is to help the student boost their microbiological, molecular and bioinformatics skills by using several techniques and analyses used routinely in a plant pathology lab. The outcomes of this project will be used as preliminary information for publications and/or as preliminary data for future fellowship applications. |
| Attach the recommended reading for the project | Tiwari, M. et al. 2022. The Impact of Microbes in Plant Immunity and Priming Induced Inheritance: A Sustainable Approach for Crop protection (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stress.2022.100072) |
| Mauch-Mani, B. et al. 2017. Defense Priming: An Adaptive Part of Induced Resistance (https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-arplant-042916-041132) |
| Peeters, N. et al. 2013. Ralstonia solanacearum, a widespread bacterial plant pathogen in the post-genomic era (https://doi.org/10.1111/mpp.12038) |
| Xue, H. et al 2020. Insights into the Root Invasion by the Plant Pathogenic Bacterium Ralstonia solanacearum (https://doi.org/10.3390/plants9040516) |
