Jorunn Bos

My research is aimed at understanding how aphids modify their host plants at the molecular level to enable successful infestations. Aphids are devastating plant sap-feeding insects. These insects cause direct feeding damage and transmit the majority of plant viruses, resulting in significant yield losses, particularly in staple food crops.

Aphid control relies on insecticides that are damaging to the environment and to which aphids can become resistant. To develop new control strategies we need to understand how these insects interact with plants at the cellular and molecular level.

Key questions herein are: Which plant cellular processes are perturbed by aphids and how does that enable infestation? What do aphids “inject” into host plants to establish successful infestations? Can we generate crops with durable aphid resistance while reducing insecticide usage?

Recent work suggests that aphids, like plant pathogens, secrete effectors into their host plants to manipulate host cell processes and impact the ability to infest plants. These effectors are produced in the aphid salivary glands and secreted into the host during aphid feeding.

My lab aims to identify and characterise these effectors from the aphid species Myzus persicae (green peach aphid) to understand how they perturb plant cellular processes and promote host plant infestation.