Hui Tian: Plant Physiology First Author

Hui Tian, first author of “Fungal dual-domain LysM effectors undergo chitin-induced intermolecular, and not intramolecular, dimerization”

Current Position: Post-doctoral researcher, University of Cologne, Germany

Education:  MSc in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Nanjing Agricultural University, China, and PhD in Phytopathology, Wageningen University, The Netherlands

Non-scientific Interests: Cooking, mysteries novel reading, jogging

Brief bio:

I am fascinated by plant-microbe interactions and the strategies plants developed to recognize microbial pathogens, as well as the mechanisms successful pathogenic microbes evolved to escape plant recognition. My PhD research focused on characterizing biological functions and three-dimensional structures of lysin motif (LysM)-containing effectors of various plant pathogenic fungi. It is well known that some LysM effectors are able to scavenge fungal cell wall-derived chitin fragments with ultra-high chitin binding affinity, preventing chitin recognition by plant receptors, and thus inactivating chitin-triggered plant immunity. In our current study published in Plant Physiology, we demonstrate that other LysM effectors form chitin-induced polymeric complexes that may precipitate at infection sites in order to eliminate immunogenic chitin molecules. Presently, my goal is to further investigate the breadth of mechanisms and functions of LysM effectors in fungal interactions with other organisms.

姓名：田卉

目前职位：德国科隆大学 博士后

教育背景：

博士  荷兰瓦赫宁根大学 植物病理组

硕士  中国南京农业大学 生物化学与分子生物学

学士  中国沈阳农业大学 生命科学学院

兴趣爱好：烹饪，悬疑小说阅读，慢跑

 

个人简历：

我对植物与微生物的相互作用, 以及植物演化出能有效识别病原微生物的策略和病原微生物所采取的以逃避植物识别的机制非常感兴趣。我博士期间的研究重点是植物病原真菌中含有lysin motif (LysM) 的效应子蛋白的生物学功能以及它们三维空间结构的解析。已有研究证明，一些病原真菌的LysM效应子蛋白能够以超高的几丁质结合能力清除真菌细胞壁所释放出的游离几丁质分子，以阻止这些几丁质被植物中的几丁质受体所识别，从而达到使几丁质特异的植物免疫反应失活的目的。在刚发表在Plant Physiology的研究中，我们发现一些其他的LysM效应子蛋白可以采取另外一种不同的策略：这些LysM效应子蛋白在几丁质的诱导下可以形成蛋白-几丁质-蛋白的大分子聚合物。而这些聚合物可能在病原真菌侵染宿主植物的部位沉淀，从而消除游离几丁质分子在侵染部位的存在。此种策略可以同样使几丁质特异的植物免疫失活。现在我的研究重点是深入解析LysM效应子蛋白在真菌与其他生物体相互作用中的功能及其广泛采取的机制。