Chloroplast immunity a neglected mechanism to enhance sustainable agriculture

Chloroplasts, more commonly known for their important role in photosynthesis, have recently been shown to be involved in plant immunity. Chloroplasts are directly targeted by pathogen effector proteins during infection to suppress immunity. Part of this process involves quenching a reactive oxygen burst that is essential for host immunity.

The project will aim to understand and study the precise chloroplast role during the defence response and which functions of the organelle are a target of the pathogen.

This will be achieved by combining techniques of proteomics to analyse chloroplast proteomes after the infection, microbiology and plant genetics to create mutant lines, and whole plant imaging and confocal imaging to observe the plant response in the context of the chloroplast. Findings from this project are expected to provide new leads for developing more pathogen resistant crops.