Thesis supervisor: László Kozma-Bognár
Location of studies (in Hungarian): Department of Genetics, Faculty of Sciences and Informatics, University of Szeged Abbreviation of location of studies: SZTE
Description of the research topic:
Some antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are effective against pathogenic organisms in vivo than in vitro. This suggests that stimulation of innate immunity is an important component of the mode of action of some AMPs in vivo. The majority of observations supporting this conclusion stem from experiments in mouse bacteremia models. However, much less is known about the situation in organisms that lack cellular and humoral immune systems but employ the defense mechanisms based on inducible innate immunity (such as plants, oomycetes, fungi). The aim of proposed research program is to study interactions between exogenous AMP molecules and inducible innate immunity of plants based on the analysis of AMP-induced transcription and protein patterns in lower organisms, mainly in plants, using Agrobacterium-infected wild -type and innate immune mutant of Arabidopsis thaliana models. The primary goal of the project is to better understand the genetic regulation of inducible innate immunity of plants and revealing the details of in vivo mode-of-actions of selected AMP molecules. We focus on optimized synthetic derivatives of proline-arginine-rich (PrAMP) molecules and AMPs from bacterial symbionts of insect pathogenic nematodes. We intend to identify transcription and signaling factors that modulate to the expression of genes controlling plant responses to de novo production of peptides that stimulate induced innate immune. The results are expected to provide better understanding of the details of the in vivo mode-of-action of AMPs, and to assist the development of new generations of potent plant protecting AMP molecule families.
Required language skills: English Further requirements: Knowledge in antimicrobial peptides, acquaintance in model genetic systems (Arabidopsis, C. elegans, Drosophila), molecular biology, and genetic analysis, and motivation doing cutting-edge research
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