Collaborators
- Ravin Poudel PhD - USDA-ARS/ University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
- Mathews L. Paret - University of Florida IFAS, Perry, FL
- Trent Northen, DOE Joint Genome Institute, Walnut Creek, CA
- Chris Reisch, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Lab staff
- Ravin Poudel, PhD
Project
We are develop probabilistic graphical models of bacterial-fungal-plant interactions using metagenomic and polar exometabolite data. The experiment exposed resistant (line H7996) and susceptible (line FL8000) tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) to the select agent soil pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum (RS5) which is responsible for Bacterial Wilt (Figure 1). R. solanacearum infects plants through root wounds and colonizes vascular tissues. The pathogen rapidly multiplies and clogs the xylem vessels causing the infected plant to quickly wilt and die. Exopolysaccharides from R. solanacearum activate salicylic acid (SA) pathways in the resistant plants, but not in susceptible plants (Mansfield et al., 2012; Milling et al., 2011). A recent study suggested the microbiome plays a role in host susceptibility (Kwak et al., 2018). The system is being used as a model for developing new techniques in modeling bacterial-fungal-plant interactions and developing statistical methods to engineer microbial consortia from these graphical models.
Grants
Developing probabilistic graphical models and analysis software to integrate multi-omics data
U.S. Department of Energy, Joint Genome Institute
2020-02 to 2023-01
GRANT_NUMBER: CSP 505422