UK-Brazil International Partnering Award: Development of novel strategies to address plant-microbes interactions in planta
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Warwick
Department Name: School of Life Sciences
Abstract
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| Description | Many pieces of scientific work tell us that microbes and plants working together is productive and we also know that their activity changes over the course of the day, in a circadian manner. To work out if these rhythms bring benefits we have been developing methods to help study how the microbe population changes over time. This involved exchange of researchers between Brazil and the UK, and vice versa, forming an early career researcher collaborative team. Our new PhD student is now carrying out further research. |
| Exploitation Route | New methods can be used by other researchers to pinpoint how microbes that work with the plant change in activity. |
| Sectors | Agriculture Food and Drink |
| Description | Training of the researchers involved has enabled them to develop their career in technical education (lab academic leadership position). |
| First Year Of Impact | 2023 |
| Sector | Education |
| Impact Types | Societal |
| Description | Microbiome strategic road map |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| URL | https://iuk.ktn-uk.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Microbiome_Strategic_Roadmap_FINAL.pdf |
| Description | Development of novel strategies to address plant-microbes interactions in planta |
| Organisation | Universidade de São Paulo |
| Country | Brazil |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | This is a new UK-Brazil international partnership to study plant-microbe interactions involved in symbiosis and regulation of plant growth and development influenced by the circadian clock between the University of Warwick and the University of São Paulo, Brazil. It brings together recent work by Isabelle Carré and Miriam Gifford at the University of Warwick uncovered the impact of the circadian clock on symbiotic interaction between the legume Medicago truncatula and nitrogen-fixing rhizobia, leading to a current BBSRC-funded project (BB/T015357/1; Achom et al. 2021 Journal of Experimental Botany). |
| Collaborator Contribution | It also links the work of Isabelle Carré and Gary Bending at the University of Warwick who discovered that plant circadian rhythms influence the composition of the rhizosphere microbiome (Newman et al., Under Revision). Joining forces with Carlos Hotta and Marie-Anne Van Sluys at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, will enable us to access expertise on circadian rhythms and endophytes in the important crop of sugarcane (Dantas et al. 2021 New Phytologist). It will also bring enable use of fluorescent bacterial cell lines, which will be valuable tools for validation of our experimental approaches. |
| Impact | Updated March 2023: (1) Researcher exchange from University of São Paulo -> University of Warwick (November 2022): researchers developed bacterial GFP-lines to track endophyte colonisation of Setaria viridis at Warwick and learnt methods for cell dissociation from tissue, and cell sorting. (2) Researcher exchange from University of Warwick -> University of São Paulo (February 2023): researchers developed methods to separate and sequence endophytes, using a range of cell strainers and sequence of dissociation methods. Next we plan a bilateral workshop to plan next steps. |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | Discussion with poet-in-residence to create new ways to communicate ideas |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Discussion with Sujatha Menon, poet-in-residence at Warwick's School of Life Sciences. She is developing a book of poetry centred around research that we do, to help open up this area to others. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |