Research projects of current students
- Alexander Hof
- Start date: October 2009
- Nationality: German
- Bachelor thesis:
Characterization of Pep1, an essential penetration factor of Ustilago maydis (2007); AG Kahmann, Dept. of Organismic Interactions, Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Marburg
- Master thesis:
Identification of cell death suppressing proteins in Ustilago maydis and Ustilago hordei (2009); AG Doehlemann, Dept. of Organismic Interactions, Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Marburg
- Research group:
AG Doehlemann, Dept. of Organismic Interactions, Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Marburg
- Research project description:
In plants programmed cell death is not only a fundamental process during all vegetative and reproductive stages of plant development, but also an essential defense mechanism during pathogen attack. Therefore the prevention of programmed cell death is essential to biotrophic plant pathogens such as Ustilago hordei or Ustilago maydis. In the compatible interaction of U. hordei and barley programmed cell death is fully prevented and no macroscopic symptoms of infection are visible. Deletion mutants of the secreted effector protein Pep1 on the other hand cause programmed cell death comparable to the nonhost resistance reaction after infection with U. maydis.
I am using a yeast based approach to identify cell death suppressing proteins of U. hordei and will further characterize these as well as their interaction partners on the plant side. Therefore a whole set of molecular, biochemical and microscopical techniques is used to further investigate the role of programmed cell death during the biotrophic interaction of Ustilago and barley.
