EASTBIO Hyphal growth of filamentous fungi: regulation and omics analysis.

Many filamentous fungi are important pathogens of plant crops, animals, and humans, affecting food security and economy, and animal and human health. A key feature of filamentous fungi is rapid polarised growth of fungal hyphae, allowing efficient exploration of local resources and host environment.

 This PhD project is aimed at understanding hyphal growth and how it is regulated by cell-stress pathways. Our laboratory has a long history of research on polarised growth in the single-cell fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, using genetics, live-cell fluorescence imaging and proteomics approaches, and we also study how S. pombe polarised growth is regulated by stress-signalling pathways, Because many of the proteins involved in S. pombe polarised growth are conserved in filamentous fungi, we have recently begun studying hyphal growth in the non-pathogenic filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans. We have developed an efficient CRISPR-Cas9 system for gene-mutation and gene-tagging in A. nidulans. In the project we will engineer cells to allow both positive and negative manipulation of the activity of stress-activated protein kinases, and we will investigate analyse how this affects hyphal growth and hyphal structure, as well as the localisations of different proteins involved in polarised growth.

 We will also use proteomics and phosphoproteomics approaches to investigate how protein-protein interactions and post-translational modifications among proteins involved in hyphal growth are altered in response to changes in activity of stress-activated protein kinases.

A. nidulans is closely related to fungal pathogens such as Aspergillus fumigatus and Aspergillus flavus, and therefore knowledge gained from the PhD project will inform research into these organisms as well.

 The PhD project combines the microscopy, genetics, and biochemistry/mass spectrometry expertise of the Sawin group with the omics and big-data expertise of the Wallace group. Methods involved in the project will include gene tagging and gene deletion/mutation, live-cell fluorescence microscopy, protein purification/mass spectrometry/proteomics, and statistical analysis of omics data.

https://sawin.bio.ed.ac.uk/

https://www.ed.ac.uk/biology/wcb/research/research-group-leaders/ken-sawin

https://ewallace.github.io/

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