EMBO Member
MPI für terrestrische Mikrobiologie, Marburg | Germany
EMBO 1991 | FelC 92–95 | YipC 02–04 | YipC 05–07 | Council 14–16 | Council 17–19
My group is interested in elucidating how fungal pathogens manage to colonize plants. To address this we study the fungus Ustilago maydis, causing smut disease in corn. We have uncovered that the interaction largely relies on novel secreted protein effectors that function in plant defense suppression and metabolic reprogramming of the host. Our goal is to determine the molecular mechanism how these effectors manipulate plant processes and how some of these effectors translocate to plant cells.
Keywords: Plant pathogenic fungi / fungal effectors / host specificity / surface sensing / comparative genomics
Subject area(s): Microbiology, Virology & Pathogens | Signal Transduction