Welcome to the Collmer lab
The overall goal of our work is to understand how the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae grows and causes disease symptoms in plants and to use that knowledge to improve the management of plant disease. Our work focuses on the type III secretion system and the many virulence effector proteins injected into plant cells by the system. Although genomics provides the foundation for our research, we use a wide range of genetic, biochemical, and cell biological methods, and we collaborate with other labs in a larger effort to understand Pseudomonas-plant interactions as a biological system.
Current projects focus on
The P. syringae type III secretion system
The P. syringae type III effector repertoire
Functional genomics of bacterial adaptations to life in planta
The bacterial speck disease symptoms caused by Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 in tomato, Arabidopsis, and Nicotiana benthamiana.
The genome of Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 superimposed on a confocal microscopy image of P. syringae colonies (labeled with green fluorescent protein) growing in the intercellular spaces of a leaf.