Understanding the origin and evolutionary history of plant immunity

The fossil record demonstrates that filamentous microbes invaded ancient plant cells with intracellular hyphal structures over 450 million years ago. To this day, a rich diversity of extant land plant taxa continues to be colonized by detrimental and beneficial microbes, yet much of our knowledge has focused on the evolutionarily young angiosperm lineage of flowering plants. To better understand how distantly-related land plants defend themselves against pathogen infection, the research group investigates the molecular genetic mechanisms controlling disease resistance in the model liverwort Marchantia polymorpha. In particular, focusing on interactions with fungus-like filamentous oomycete phytopathogens belonging to the genus Phytophthora, which provide a unique platform to compare host responses to infection across distantly-related land plant lineages.
The goal of this project is to investigate the origin and evolutionary history of nonhost resistance strategies that protect the model liverwort M. polymorpha from Phytophthora infection. Using comparative macroevolutionary, molecular genetic, and multi-omics approaches, widely-conserved and lineage-specific aspects of plant defence will be explored that will ultimately inform future efforts to protect crops from harmful pathogens.