Properties of plant specific membranes and their interactions with toxins from important agricultural pathogens - continuation

Many devastating plant diseases, including those of essential food crop plants, are caused by microbes such as bacteria, fungi and “fungi-like” organisms called oomycetes. We recently discovered that all three groups use similar protein toxins (NLP) to damage plant cells. They bind a class of lipid molecules found only in plant cell membranes. These lipids, called glycosylinositol phosphoceramides (GIPC), are found exclusively in plants and little is known about the properties of lipid membranes containing them. Our initial 2 days of neutron experiments revealed the structure of GIPC containing membranes and how the NLP toxins bind the membrane. However we don't know how this damages the cell and need to understand how far the toxin penetrates into the plant cell membrane. We wish to have 2 days more beam time to carry out the essential extra experiments prior to publishing our paper..