Speaker: Dr. Peter McCourt (University of Toronto)
Where: L-GE 110 | When: 1:15 pm “Understanding Hormone Perception in Parasitic Plants Using Chemical Genomics” Abstract: Small molecule hormones play central roles in plant and animal development ranging from cellular differentiation and organ formation to instructing developmental responses in changing environments. A recently discovered collection of related small molecules, collectively called strigolactones (SLs), are of particular interest as these molecules not only function as hormones but also function as ecological communicators between plants and fungi and between parasitic plants and their hosts. In this seminar, I summarize this information and examine how understanding SL hormone signaling is leading to insights into parasitic plant infections particularly in Striga hermonthica. Striga hermonthica represent a major concern for food insecurity in the developing world so there is great need for approaches to perturb parasitic plant infections. However, a laboratory-friendly model for Striga does not exist so we are currently using information gleaned from expressing Striga receptors in the model genetic plant, Arabidopsis, to understand this non model system. We are also using this information in combination with chemical genetics to understand parasitic SL perception. This work shows how understanding SL perception is useful in developing compounds that perturb SL signaling. Second, these studies demonstrate that the chemical space available to probe SL signaling in both model and parasitic plants is sizeable. Photo By: Michael Chung Comments are closed.
|
BGSA NewsLatest News Archives
September 2018
Categories |