Topic: “Genomics of economically important plant parasitic nematodes, Pratylechus”
The project will be based at the University of Edinburgh, Institute of Evolutionary Biology, and will be co-supervised by Prof John Jones of the University of St. Andrews. It is a collaboration with Prof. Michael GK Jones and Dr John Fosu-Nyarko of the Plant Biotechnology Research Group (PBRG) of Murdoch University, Western Australia.
Project Goals:
• generate high quality, well annotated genome sequences for the most important Pratylenchus species (including at least P. penetrans, P. thornei, P. neglectus, P. zeae, P. quasiteriodes and P. vulnus). Where possible we will generate resequencing data for each species, including P. coffeae.
• annotate these genomes to identify potential “effector genes”: loci whose products are likely to play roles in the parasite-host interface, possible horizontally transferred genes with roles in parasitism, and gene products that are unique to Pratylenchus
• define the patterns of evolution of the genomes and the effector genes.
• participate in and inform the development of novel control strategies.
more information at: http://www.eastscotbiodtp.ac.uk/genomics-economically-important-plant-parasitic-nematodes-pratylechus