Anthea Zhang ’25, Chemical and Biological Engineering

Anthea Zhang ’25

Major

Chemical and Biological Engineering

Project Title

Probing Suppression and Evasion of the Plant Immune System by Commensals from the Plant Root Microbiome

Plants have an innate immune response that is triggered by microbes through the recognition of conserved microbial extracellular molecules called “microbe-associated molecular patterns” (MAMPs). This process is typically sufficient to prevent microbe colonization of the plant, but some microbes have adapted to produce molecules that interfere with this MAMP-triggered immunity (MTI). Currently, the genetic mechanisms that enable commensal microbes to live in plant exudates after the MTI are not well understood. I aimed to better understand how commensal bacteria interact with plant exudates when the plant immune system is activated by studying two previously identified MTI-resistant commensal strains of bacteria, Brevundimonas sp. MF374 and Dyella japonica MF79. I grew libraries of MF374 and MF79 mutant bacteria with the substances produced by the Arabidopsis plant immune response and then extracted and purified DNA from mutant bacteria to prepare it for sequencing. This sequencing data will be analyzed to identify the genes related to MF374 and MF79 fitness when the Arabidopsis immune response is activated. I found the exploratory nature of this project exciting and I plan to continue to study the little-understood interactions between commensal bacteria and the plant immune response in my senior independent research project.

* This internship is connected to the HMEI Water and the Environment Grand Challenges project, “Probing Microbial Colonization of Plants During Drought to Enable Microbiome-Mediated Resilience in Crops.”