Fernando Cantao
Transcriptomic analyses as tools to give insights to sieve-element response to pathogenic mollicutes.
Supervisor: prof. Rita Musetti, co-supervisors: prof. Simonetta Santi and prof. Fabio Marroni
Phytoplasmas invade the phloem tissue with important effects on its morphophysiology, resulting in alterations on sugar metabolism and transport, as well as mineral element allocation and ion homeostasis. Phloem morphology is altered and expression changes of genes encoding for occlusion proteins and callose synthase in phytoplasma-infected grapevine, tomato, and Arabidopsis have been reported. However, we have little knowledge on the molecular mechanisms underlying phytoplasma-host plant interaction at the infection site. The general focus of my project is to deepen phytoplasma-plant interaction using as a starting point Next Generation Sequencing (RNA-Seq) datasets in Arabidopsis, grapevine, and tomato as tool. One specific goal will be identifying the mechanisms involved on photosynthesis impairment, as the most important gene expression changes following phytoplasma infection were reveled in the chloroplasts (Buoso et al., 2019).
Biography and contacts
Fernando Cantão was born in Minas Gerais, Brazil in 1979. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Agronomy in 2005 and his master’s degree in Plant Physiology in 2007 both at Federal University of Lavras (UFLA), Brazil. After finishing his master, he worked as a visiting researcher at Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA). From 2008 to 2013 he worked as researcher at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), USA in the Crop Physiology Lab focusing on technologies and management technics to mitigate abiotic stresses in corn. His last position in the private sector was as Product and Field Development Director for Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico at Provivi Inc. Fernando got his PhD in Plant Physiology and Applied Botany at UFLA in December of 2021; in this same month he moved to Italy to start his PhD in “Agriculture Science and Biotechnology” at the University of Udine.