Mechanisms of Bacterial Pathogenesis in Plants

Catalog description

This course covers the mechanisms that certain bacteria use to infect and cause disease in plants. We will consider the molecular, genetic, biochemical, and physiological systems that are used by plant-pathogenic bacteria to move about and infect plants, cause disease symptoms, evade plant immune responses, and derive nutrition from the plant. We will cover these topics through a combination of lectures and close readings of current and classic primary research articles. The course also has a major, hands-on laboratory component that includes experiments on bacterial genetics related to disease, bacterial physiology and behavior, and the stimulation of plant immune responses during bacterial infection. Students taking this class can expect to gain experience reading primary plant bacteriology research literature and designing and implementing experiments in plant-bacterial interaction.