Immune Cell Death Zonation Regulated by Protein Hubs in Plants

Agriculture, which underpins the livelihoods of over 2.5 billion people, is nowadays confronted with an array of new threats including plant pests. This project tackles the urgent need to develop new, technology-based sustainable strategies to combat the constant agricultural losses and economic drain derived from plant pests, which have been worsened because of climate change. The understanding of the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlaying plant pathogen interaction and defence responses is not only a fundamental scientific challenge, but it is also relevant to practical applications. Despite decades of research on host-pathogen interactions, knowledge on fundamental aspects of the plant immune system is still missing. This proposal provides an excellent opportunity to help filling this gap of knowledge as it targets the question of how cells translate molecular pathogen recognition into immune cell death, and how dying cells and their neighbours communicate to tightly control this process and ensure the proper balance in between defence responses and plant growth and fitness. To address this question, I have designed a multidisciplinary and international project using Arabidopsis thaliana plant as a model system to study the molecular determinants of plant immune cell death zonation and the involvement of plant metacaspases, distant relatives of animal caspases, in cell death. A plethora of techniques including molecular and biochemistry techniques, plant phenotyping and engineering, FACS and cell biology microscopy techniques will be used for the proper execution of this project. In addition to generate high-impact knowledge in plant immunity that will ultimately impact on society, this proposal will provide me with the expertise, resources, training, and network to become extremely competitive in the field of molecular plant pathology, helping me to progress in my scientific career and to achieve my scientific goals.