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Project

Exploring levans and levan-degrading biological control organisms for plant protection

This project seeks to contribute to future environmentally sustainable
societies by focusing on the development of new products to lower
the dependence on toxic agrochemicals in agriculture and
horticulture. Biological control organisms (BCO) and priming are two
common approaches to boost plant innate immunity to counteract
biotic and abiotic stress. Fructans, naturally occurring fructose
polymers, already proved effective in protecting lettuce and rocket
against Botrytis infections. Shorter levan oligosaccharides (LOS)
provide the best results, suggesting that quick release of LOS from
longer bacterial levans may act as signals for plant defense priming.
We hypothesize that quick LOS production requires the combined
action of plant-derived exo-levanases (6-FEHs) and symbiotic
microbial endo-levanases, since the latter enzymes do not occur in
plants. Here, we aim to test this hypothesis in lettuce and barley by
isolating levan-degrading BCO (LDBCO) that specifically produce
endo-levanase. We explore these in the context of seed and seedling
priming, in the absence or presence of bacterial levans, and
subjected to biotic (Botrytis, Fusarium Head Blight) and abiotic (salt)
stress. Combined with 6-FEH gene expression, subcellular
localization studies and stress responses of 6-FEH CRISPR
knockout lines, this will clarify the respective roles of fructan
signalling, LDBCO and 6-FEHs in the process. This will pave the way
to develop innovative formulations for plant protection.

Date:1 Jan 2022 →  Today
Keywords:Levan oligosaccharides, Seed priming, Biological Control Organisms
Disciplines:Agricultural plant protection, Horticultural crop protection