Investigation of non-coding RNAs in plant-endophyte symbiosis

Dr. rer. nat Ena Šečić is a postdoctoral researcher (Akademische Rätin), previously in the lab of PI Kogel, now Prof. Dr. Patrick Schäfer (Institute for Phytopathology, Uni Gießen). She has established the Brachypodium distachyon-Serendipita indica grass-endophyte model system, and extended the research to other model and crop species. Focusing on non-coding RNA molecules in beneficial plant-microbe interactions, she is investigating regulation of establishment and maintenance of symbiosis. Together with the Goesmann group and PI Kogel she developed a bioinformatics pipeline to identify putative sRNA effectors, studied RNAi components (including AGO and DCL genes) in various plant-microbe interactions, and established comparative non-coding RNA analysis pipelines."