Hannah Kuhn

University Hospital RWTH Aachen

Plants encounter beneficial and detrimental microorganisms both above- and belowground and the health status of the plant depends on the composition of this pan-microbiome. Beneficial microorganisms contribute to plant nutrition or systemically or locally protect plants against pathogens, thus facilitating adaptation to a variety of environments. I...

Successful pathogens must efficiently defeat or delay host immune responses, including those triggered by release or exposure of microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs). Knowledge of the molecular details leading to this phenomenon in genuine plant-pathogen interactions is still scarce. We took advantage of the well-established Arabidopsis th...

Expansion of gene families facilitates robustness and evolvability of biological processes but impedes functional genetic dissection of signalling pathways. To address this, quantitative analysis of single cell responses can help characterise the redundancy within gene families. We developed high‐throughput quantitative imaging of stomatal closure,...

Powdery mildew is a common and widespread plant disease of considerable agronomic relevance. It is caused by obligate biotrophic fungal pathogens that in most cases epiphytically colonize aboveground plant tissues. The disease has been typically studied as a binary interaction of the fungal pathogen with its plant hosts, for the most part neglectin...

Arabidopsis thaliana mlo2 mlo6 mlo12 triple mutant plants exhibit complete immunity against infection by otherwise virulent obligate biotrophic powdery mildew fungi such as Golovinomyces orontii. While this phenotype is well documented, the interaction profile of the triple mutant with other microbes is underexplored and incomplete. Here, we thorou...

Loss of function mutations of particular plant MILDEW RESISTANCE LOCUS O (MLO) proteins confer durable and broad-spectrum penetration resistance against powdery mildew fungi. Here, we combined genetic, transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses to explore the defense mechanisms in the fully resistant Arabidopsis thaliana mlo2 mlo6 mlo12 triple mutant....

Significance Plants detect conserved molecular patterns of pathogens via cell surface-localized receptors, such as the flagellin receptor kinase FLS2, that initiate effective plant immunity. Activated FLS2 is endocytosed, but the degree to which other receptor kinases exhibit similar spatiotemporal dynamics remains unclear. We show that internaliza...

In an approaching scenario of soil nutrient depletion, root association with soil microorganisms can be key for plant health and sustainability [1-3]. Symbiotic arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are major players in helping plants growing under nutrient starvation conditions. They provide plants with minerals like phosphate and, furthermore, act as...

It is generally accepted in plant-microbe interactions research that disease is the exception rather than a common outcome of pathogen attack. However, in nature, plants with symptoms that signify colonization by obligate biotrophic powdery mildew fungi are omnipresent. The pervasiveness of the disease and the fact that many economically important...

The first layer of plant immunity is activated by cell surface receptor-like kinases (RLKs) and proteins (RLPs) that detect infectious pathogens. Constitutive interaction with the SUPPRESSOR OF BIR1 (SOBIR1) RLK contributes to RLP stability and kinase activity. As RLK activation requires transphosphorylation with a second associated RLK, it remains...

Plants employ cell surface-localised receptors to recognise potential invaders via perception of microbe-derived molecules. This is mediated by pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) that bind microbe-associated or damage-associated molecular patterns or perceive apoplastic effector proteins secreted by microorganisms. In either case, effective recog...

Inventors in the field of mechanical and electronic engineering can access multitudes of components and, thanks to standardization, parts from different manufacturers can be used in combination with each other. The introduction of BioBrick standards for the assembly of characterized DNA sequences was a landmark in microbial engineering, shaping the...

Background Compared to other ascomycetes, the barley powdery mildew pathogen Blumeria graminis f.sp. hordei (Bgh) has a large genome (ca. 120 Mbp) that harbors a relatively small number of protein-coding genes (ca. 6500). This genomic assemblage is thought to be the result of numerous gene losses, which likely represent an evolutionary adaptation t...

Filamentous phytopathogens such as fungi and oomycetes secrete effector proteins to establish successful interactions with their plant hosts. In contrast to oomycetes, little is known about effector functions in true fungi. We used a bioinformatic pipeline to identify effector candidates (BECs) from the obligate biotrophic barley powdery mildew pat...

Heterotrimeric G-proteins, composed of Gα, Gβ and Gγ subunits, regulate many fundamental processes in plants. In animals, ligand binding to seven transmembrane (7TM) cell surface receptors designated G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) leads to heterotrimeric G-protein activation. Since the plant G-protein complex is constitutively active, the exac...

The arbuscular mycorrhiza is widely regarded as a textbook example of a mutualistic symbiosis. However, new results regarding the existence of mycorrhizal fungal effectors as well as the transcriptional regulation of a fungal symbiotic monosaccharide transporter emphasize that even in beneficial associations the interactors are not solely altruisti...

Biotrophic fungi interacting with plants establish long-term relationships with their hosts to fulfill their life cycles. In contrast to necrotrophs, they need to contend with the defense mechanisms of the plant to develop within the host and feed on living cells. It is generally accepted that microbial pathogens produce and deliver a myriad of eff...

Comparative analyses of genome sequences from several plant-infecting fungi have shown conservation and expansion of protein families with plant disease-related functions. Here, we show that this hypothesis can be extended to mutualistic symbiotic fungi. We have identified a gene encoding an Era (Escherichia coli Ras)-like GTPase in the rice blast...

Arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) is a mutualistic biotrophic association that requires a complex exchange of signals between plant and fungus to allow accommodation of the mycosymbiont in the root cortex. Signal exchange happens even before physical contact, activating the plant symbiotic program. We investigated very early transcriptional responses in M...