On Friday, I heard a lovely chalk talk given by my dear friend, Riley Reeves, who is currently researching calcium signaling and pattern-triggered immunity in Arabidopsis thaliana, otherwise known as thale cress.
Riley’s research involves looking at the mechanisms behind pattern-triggered immunity, a conserved process in plants that is closely related to innate immunity in animals. In the pathway for pattern-triggered immunity, calcium serves as a signal to activate calcium-dependent protein kinases, which operate downstream to regulate the cytoskeleton of the plant. In the pathway, flg22 and its receptor FLS2 are involved in the plant immune response. Riley’s research involved learning more about the spatiotemporal dynamics behind this pathway. One of the ways to do this was to assay cytoskeletal response at the same time as calcium response.
Overall, Riley’s research provided context for an area of research which I have not had much exposure to. Learning about the dynamics behind pattern-triggered immunity and calcium signaling could inspire more research about immunity in plants and expand these concepts to animals (since pattern-triggered immunity has many similarities to innate immunity). I know she will have some very interesting findings, and I’m excited to hear more about them.
Very supportive and kind review! And definitely true, Riley’s project is very cool!! You summarized it nicely. Excited to see both of your posters soon!