Anna Dickinson

Biography

Plant-parasitic nematodes are major agricultural pests that establish long-term feeding relationships with crop plants, diverting nutrients and severely reducing yield. However, it remains poorly understood how nematodes coordinate gene expression throughout infection - both their own and that of the host plant - to establish feeding sites. In my PhD project, I investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying feeding site establishment. First, nematodes must precisely regulate effector expression according to their position within the root; I investigate how they localise within roots by identifying candidate sensory receptors using single-nucleus sequencing approaches. Second, nematodes must transcriptionally reprogramme host cells to engineer multinucleate feeding sites, which I investigate by mapping transcriptional reprogramming across cell types and time. Ultimately, this work aims to identify molecular components indispensable for parasitism, providing potential targets for engineering durable crop resistance.