The regulation of the legume symbiosis with nitrogen fixing bacteria

Artificial fertilisers carry a high economic and ecological cost. However, modern agriculture is reliant on their use in order to provide crops with enough nitrogen. Some plants meet their nitrogen requirements by housing bacteria who can access nitrogen from the atmosphere and providing them with carbon in return for this nitrogen. Engineering this relationship into crop plants could help to reduce reliance on fertiliser. To do this we need a better understanding of this relationship and how it's regulated. We now know that the plant can retaliate against cheating bacterial strains (those who don't provide nitrogen) by not giving them carbon when multiple bacterial strains infect the same plant. We don't yet fully understand this process, called sanctioning, or how the plant detects whether a strain is cheating and then sanctions it. The aim of this DPhil project will be to enhance our understanding of sanctioning both as it relates to the bacteria and the mechanism by which it occurs.
This project will address the priority areas of: food, nutrition and health, and global food security