112 Jenkins-Waggoner Laboratory
The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station
New Haven, CT 06511
lindsay.triplett@ct.gov
(203) 974-8611
LABORATORY of LINDSAY TRIPLETT, Ph.D.
BACTERIAL PLANT PATHOLOGY
THE CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION
EST. 2015
RESEARCH
Our current active projects fall into two main areas.
The roles of protists in shaping the plant microbiome and plant health.
Plants host a wide variety of microbes that impact their health and development. These include hundreds of species of protists (diverse microorganisms that are not bacteria, animals, or fungi). By eating certain bacteria and fungi that live on plants, protists are thought to recycle nutrients and to increase the survival and activity of beneficial bacteria. In 2019, we initiated a USDA-funded project to understand which groups of plant-associated protists have the greatest impact on plant microbiome structure and health. We are performing isolation and sequencing surveys of plant-attached protist communities to help address questions such as:
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Do different crops and tissues enrich distinct groups of protists?
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How do the ecological traits of protist isolates, such as feeding rate and preference, correlate with their impact in the rhizosphere?
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How do different groups of protists interact with each other to affect rhizosphere function?
In the long term, we hope to use these findings to develop new model systems and disease management strategies toward improving crop health.
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Collaborator: Dr. Daniel Gage (UCONN)
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Video of an unidentified protist isolated from maize roots in CT, engulfing the cyst of another protist.
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Isolated and filmed by Jamie Micciulla, UCONN Ph.D. student.
Diversity and roles of toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems in plant pathogenic bacteria.
Toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems are self-killing gene modules that are ubiquitous, numerous, and diverse in free-living bacteria. Consisting of a stable antibacterial toxin and an unstable antitoxin that blocks toxin activity, TA systems have long been known to play a role in maintenance of plasmid DNA and DNA islands in bacteria. When a plasmid is lost during cell division, the toxin persists longer than the antitoxin in the plasmidless daughter cell, and the toxin kills cells lacking the DNA.
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Certain TA systems in plant pathogens might play a significant role in virulence, persistence on hosts, or survival of antibiotic treatments and other stresses. As part of a CAES-funded project initiated in 2017 and a USDA-NIFA funded project initiated in 2019, we are working to identify the functions of TA systems in the plant pathogens E. amylovora and P. syringae. A better understanding of the role of TA systems in the plant disease cycle could inform biocontrol and management strategies for these pathogens.
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Collaborators: Dr. Kevin Hockett (Penn State), Dr. George Sundin (Michigan State).
Model of toxin-antitoxin system function from Williams and Hergenrother, Trends in Microbiol. 20:291.