Proteomic and phosphoproteomic approaches to understand the wheat-Septoria tritici interaction

Grant 11-105997 from The Danish Council for Independent Research | Technology and Production Sciences (FTP) to Fen Yang

 

Septoria tritici is a hemibiotrophic fungus causing the disease leaf blotch in wheat. The project aims to investigate which wheat and fungal proteins are altered during the interaction between wheat and Septoria tritici using mass spectrometry (MS)-based quantitative proteomic and phosphoproteomic approaches and to characterise the identified proteins for elucidating their role in the interaction. The hypothesis is that highly important information on this host-pathogen interaction can be obtained from a study of the proteins changing expression profiles during the interaction. After identification of proteins, their role in interaction can be studied in great detail by different methodologies such as fungal genetic engineering, heterologous expression of proteins, protein crystallization etc.