Freddy Monteiro
Education:
2009-2013 Ph.D. Degree: Genetics. Departament de
Genètica. Fac. Biologia. Universitat de Barcelona. Barcelona, Spain. Ph.D
advisor: Dr. Marc Valls.
2008-2009 M.Sc. Degree: Developmental Biology
and Genetics. Departament de Genètica. Fac. Biologia. Universitat de Barcelona.
Barcelona, Spain.
2003-2008 B.Sc. Degree: Biochemistry. Faculdade
de Ciências e Tecnologia. Universidade de Coimbra. Coimbra, Portugal.
Project Description:
My current interests are
focused on understanding how evolutionary diverse plant pathogens evolved independent
effector proteins to interact with a limited set of host proteins. For that our
group takes advantage of the effector convergence of naturally-occurring
pathogens of Arabidopsis, namely, P.
syringae (Eubacteria), H.
arabidopsidis (Stramenopiles) and G.
orontii (Ascomycete), onto a family of plant-specific transcription factors
known as TCP [1,2].
These transcription factors are known for their roles in plant development, but
a growing body of evidences suggest their contribution in immune processes [2,3,4].
Besides, I am interested
in understanding how rapidly plants are overcoming the selective pressure
imposed by contemporary pathogens. For that, I am focusing on a pair of
divergently transcribed resistance genes present in some Arabidopsis ecotypes and Brassicaceae
species. I take advantage of in silico
methods to infer allele prevalence, diversity and expression, based on publicly
available genomic and transcriptomic datasets. I am also applying molecular
biology, biochemistry and plant pathology techniques to characterize the
function and the activation mechanism of these genes. This work is part of a
collaboration between Prof. Jeff Dangl and Prof. Jonathan Jones.
Publications:
Nishimura MT*, Monteiro F*, Dangl JL. Treasure your
exceptions: unusual domains in immune receptors reveal host virulence targets.
Cell 161(5):957-60 (2015). doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2015.05.017. PMID: 26000473
* - Co-first authors