RINFEC: The Roots of Infection

RINFEC aims to identify and characterize the plant and bacterial genes responsible for interactions between plant roots and soil bacteria. The hypothesis behind the project is that the intercellular infection mechanism used by symbiotic rhizobia is an evolutionary development of a mechanism(s) that already exists to regulate plant root interaction with endophytic bacteria living within plant roots. By characterizing this unexplored intercellular mode of infection in Lotus japonicus, we hope to uncover both the plant and bacterial genetics involved as well as the biochemical processor that controls these mechanisms.

RINFEC will exploit Lotus’ capacity to support either intercellular entry (conserved mode) or legume specific infection thread entry, dependent on the rhizobia encountered. This allows comparative investigations of these two infection modes in simple binary interactions with the same host. Given the exceptional ability of different rhizobia for intercellular endophytic colonization of non-legume roots this provides an unprecedented platform to identify mechanisms by which plants selectively enable a subset of bacteria to infect roots. RINFEC will pioneer novel plant and bacterial genetic methods, cell-layer transcriptomics, phospho-proteomics and advanced biochemistry to break new ground in understanding infection and soil microbe influences on plant performance under environmental stress conditions.