RESEARCH PROFILE

Graduate Field:

Plant Pathology (plant breeding and genetics minor).

Research Summary:

The power of genetics for advancing our understanding of parasitic symbioses of plants has been compelling. Since the first disease resistance genes began to be deciphered from crop species and Arabidopsis in the mid-1990's, we have begun to appreciate the complexity of disease resistance as a polygenic process in plants, with many component features that are analogous or even closely related in DNA sequence to components of innate immunity found in animals.

This knowledge was barely imaginable when I moved to the UK in 1990. At the time, I had a keen ambition to develop an empirical host/pathogen system for population biology. My ideas were untenable then because little was known about the host and parasite genes that would be influenced by selection, and the actual focus of population theory. I opted instead to pursue genetics and gene discovery of disease resistance in Arabidopsis. After nearly 15 years of helping establish Arabidopsis downy mildew as a model for molecular biology of host/parasite interactions, the time is now right to embark on population biology using Arabidopsis and a growing number of interesting parasites (Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis, Albugo candida, Xanthomonas campestris, Colletotrichum destructivum and Leptosphaeria maculans) to pursue the molecular ecology of plant-parasite interactions and the exciting frontier of co-evolutionary genomics.

CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS

• Assessing the impact of plant mating systems and ploidy on adaptation to parasitism in changing environments, Funded by: NERC, Project Start Date: 01/01/2011 Project End Date: 30/12/2013
• FCT funding of personal PhD award for student project Vânia Isabel Horta de Passo (Year 1 of 4), with Dr Joana G Vicente - Warwick HRI, Funded by: Unknown, Project Start Date: 01/02/2009 Project End Date: 31/01/2013
• Accelerated Breeding of Black Rot Resistant Brassicas for the Benefit of East African Smallholders, with Hand Paul, Warwick HRI, Dr Joana Vicente - Warwick HRI, Dr Paul Hand, Paul - Warwick HRI, Funded by: BBSRC, Project Start Date: 31/12/2008 Project End Date: 30/12/2012
  
  

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SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

• Holub, E. B.(2008) 'Natural history of Arabidopsis thaliana and oomycete symbioses' European Journal Of Plant Pathology 122 (1), 91 - 109 (0929-1873) [article]
• Borhan, M. H., Gunn, N., Cooper, A., Gulden, S., Tor, M., Rimmer, S. R. and Holub, E. B.(2008) 'WRR4 encodes a TIR-NB-LRR protein that confers broad-spectrum white rust resistance in Arabidopsis thaliana to four physiological races of Albugo candida' Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions 21 (6), 757 - 768 (0894-0282)
• Cooper, A. J., Latunde-Dada, A. O., Woods-Tor, A., Lynn, J., Lucas, J. A., Crute, I. R. and Holub, E. B.(2008) 'Basic compatibility of Albugo candida in Arabidopsis thaliana and Brassica juncea causes broad-spectrum suppression of innate immunity' Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions 21 (6), 745 - 756 (0894-0282)
• Holub E B(2001) 'The Arms race is ancient history in Arabidopsis, the wildflower' Nature Reviews Genetics 2 516 - 527 (1471-0056)
• Kemen, E., et al.(2011) 'Gene gain and loss during evolution of obligate parasitism in the white rust pathogen of Arabidopsis thaliana' PLoS Biology 9 (7), (1544-9173) [article]

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