Plant-Microbe Interfaces Scientific Focus Area
The Plant-Microbe Interfaces (PMI) project is a Scientific Focus Area directed towards understanding the dynamic interface that exists among plant-microbe systems. This interface is the boundary across which a plant detects, interacts with, and may alter its associated biotic environments to maintain or improve its performance. Our efforts in this project will focus on revealing the mechanistic bases underpinning the selection of symbiotic plant-microbe partnerships, determining the chemical environment that structures the host plant’s microbiome, and evaluating how the host plant and its associated microbiome respond to biotic and biotic challenges. Understanding the dynamic exchange of energy, information, and materials across the plant-microbe interface and its expression as functional properties at diverse spatial and temporal scales represents a grand challenge, and addressing this challenge is our ultimate objective.
The project integrates expertise in the areas of plant genomics, fungal and bacterial research, fungal ecology, analytical tool development and computational biology and is based at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, with collaborators at the University of Washington, Duke University, and INRA – Nancy (France). The project is a Foundational Genomics Scientific Focus Area supported by the Genomic Science Program of the Office of Biological and Environmental Research of the U.S. Department of Energy.