Current Research

• Identification and cloning avirulence determinants from Phytophthora infestans.
• Investigation of the molecular basis of pathogenicity in P. infestans by finding the plant protein targets of effector proteins.

Research History

• Construction of genetic linkage map in Vicia faba.
• Finding RAPD markers associated with GRV resistance.
• Using mtDNA in population genetic studies of potato cyst nematodes.
• Assessing the plant transcriptional response to nematode infection using SSH.

Recent Publications

• Whisson, S.C., Boevink, P.C., Moleleki, L. , Avrova,  A.O., Morales, J.G., Gilroy, E.M., Armstrong,  M.R.,  Grouffaud, S., van West, P., Chapman, S., Hein, I., Toth, I.K., Pritchard, L. and Birch, P.R.J. 2007. A translocation signal for delivery of oomycete effector proteins into host plant cells. Nature 450, 115-118. (doi:10.1038/nature06203)
• Bos, J.I.B., Kanneganti, T.-D., Young, C., Cakir, C., Huitema, E., Win, J., Armstrong, M.R., Birch, P.R.J., Kamoun, S. 2006. The C-terminal half of Phytophthora infestans RXLR effector AVR3a is sufficient to trigger R3a-mediated hypersensitivity and suppress INF1-induced cell death in Nicotiana benthamiana. Plant Journal 48(2), 165-176.
• Armstrong, M.R., Whisson, S.C., Pritchard, L., Bos, J.I.B., Venter, E., Avrova, A.O., Rehmany, A.P., Böhme, U., Brooks, K., Cherevach, I., Hamlin, N., White, B., Fraser, A., Lord, A., Quail, M., Churcher, C., Hall, N., Berriman, M., Huang, S., Kamoun, S., Beynon, J.L., Birch, P.R.J. 2005. An Ancestral Oomycete Locus Contains Late Blight Avirulence Gene Avr3a, Encoding a Protein that is Recognised in the Host Cytoplasm. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 102, 7766-7771.
• Rehmany, A.P., Gordon, A., Rose,, L.E., Allen, R.L., Armstrong, M.R., Whisson, S.C., Kamoun, S., Birch , P.R.J., Beynon, J.L. 2005. Differential recognition of highly divergent downy mildew avirulence gene alleles by RPP1 genes from two Arabidopsis lines. The Plant Cell 17, 1839-1850.
• He, Y., Jones, J., Armstrong, M., Lamberti, F., Moens, M. 2005. The mitochondrial genome of Xiphinema americanum sensu stricto (Nematoda : Enoplea): Considerable economization in the length and structural features of encoded genes. Journal of Molecular Evolution 61(6), 819-833.
• Liu, Z.Y., Bos, J.I.B., Armstrong, M., Whisson, S.C., da Cunha, L., Torto-Alalibo, T., Win, J., Avrova, A.O., Wright, F., Birch, P.R.J., Kamoun, S. 2005. Patterns of diversifying selection in the phytotoxin-like scr74 gene family of Phytophthora infestans. Molecular Biology and Evolution 22(4), 1159-1159.
• Armstrong, M.R., Blok, V.C., Phillips, M.S. 2000. A multipartite mitochondrial genome in the potato cyst nematode Globodera pallida. Genetics 154(1), 181-192.

Posters

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Attachment	Size
Yeast 2 Hybrid Screening to Identify Plant Targets of Oomycete Effector Protein AVR3a	245.47 KB
Screening potato genotypes for responses to RxLR class effector genes from Phytophthora infestans	428.64 KB
Evolutionarily distinct RXLR effectors from distantly related oomycetes target the plant exocyst	1000.56 KB
Is KIPI30 the main virulence target of the Phytophthora infestans effector protein Avr3a?	175.3 KB