Understanding how the Arabidopsis plant peptide ’Kiss Of Death’ (KOD) induces cell death in plant cells

Feeding the world’s growing population in one of the greatest challenge of our time, requiring a substantial increase in global crop yield. To avoid crippling losses on their farm, most farmers welcome the idea of responsible chemical use for crop protection in an effective and environmentally compatible way. This project is a collaboration between Dr. Gallois at the Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester and crop protection scientists at Bayer CropScience in both the Biochemistry Department and the Chemistry Department, to study the KOD pathway discovered at Manchester. By contributing to crop protection development, the broad impact of this studentship will be helping farmers in the UK and round the globe to safeguard the food supply for a growing world population.

The Arabidopsis KOD locus encodes a novel peptide that positively regulates plant PCD. Over expression of KOD is sufficient to induce a rapid PCD in plant seedlings and leaves. Characterising how KOD induces PCD is a unique opportunity for a PhD student to make discoveries that can translate to industrial screening approaches. The main objective of the studentship is to identify and characterise mutants in relevant genes downstream of KOD expression and connect them to cellular genetic networks. The student will use a combination of mutant screen, cell biology and plant phenotyping techniques to understand how the Arabidopsis plant peptide ’Kiss Of Death’ (KOD) induces cell death in plant cells. The studentship is funded for 4 years as an industrial CASE PhD studentship by the BBSRC. Therefore the student is expected to spend three months at Bayer CropScience research station, Frankfurt, Germany, where the student will have access to state-of-the-art plant phenotyping facilities. Speaking German is not required.