Mr Pieter De Maayer

PhD Student

Research Interests

Pantoea ananatis is a gram negative bacterium pathogenic to several important agronomic crops and forest tree species in South Africa, including maize, onion and Eucalyptus. From a global perspective, this pathogen also causes diseases in rice, pineapple and has been found on all continents. Little is about the mechanisms governing disease development in its plant host. My research focuses on the pathogenicity and virulence factors that make Pantoea ananatis a successful pathogen. In particular, my focus will be on Pantoea ananatis in Eucalyptus. Using molecular approaches, the location of genes encoding pathogenicity factors will be determined. We have recently sequenced the genome of the Eucalyptus-pathogenic strain Pantoea ananatis LMG20103, which has provided us with a wealth of information on this organism. With the aid of genomic approaches and the information extracted from related phytopathogenic bacteria, the individual pathogenicity and virulence factors, and their encoding genes, will be uncovered and their individual roles in disease development will be determined using functional biology approaches such as mutation of individual candidate pathogenicity genes. The aim of my PhD will thus be to gain a greater understanding of how Pantoea ananatis causes disease symptoms in it host. This information may be beneficial in the development of approaches to combat these phytopathogenic bacteria in future.