Chimuka Mwaanga

Pathogen Defence in Plants: Identification and Expression Analysis of Peroxisome-targeted Proteins Mediating Innate Immunity in Arabidopsis Thaliana Chimuka Mwaanga

Peroxisomes are single-membrane organelles that have oxidative metabolic functions. Peroxisomes carry out major functions such as lipid degradation, photorespiration and glyoxylate cycle. However, new functions have been recently reported such as peroxisome mediation in plant innate immunity. To elucidate more on peroxisomal roles in pathogen defence in plants, identification and expression analyses of both new and established peroxisome-targeted pathogen defence proteins in plants was investigated in this study. Subcellular localization analysis of four PTS1 carrying proteins with a pathogen annotation was done. In addition, gene expression analysis of established peroxisomal pathogen defence was carried out using Real-Time Quantitative PCR. Last but not the least, co-expression analyses were done on 28 pathogen defence proteins of our model plant - Arabidopsis thaliana.