Maria J. Harrison

Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research


Primary Section: 62, Plant, Soil, and Microbial Sciences
Secondary Section: 25, Plant Biology
Membership Type:
Member (elected 2019)

Biosketch

Maria J. Harrison is the William H. Crocker Professor at the Boyce Thompson Institute and an Adjunct Professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell University. She is recognized for pioneering molecular analyses of the arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis and advancing an understanding of its development and mechanisms of endosymbiotic nutrient exchange. She graduated from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1984 with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Microbiology and from the University of Manchester, Institute of Science and Technology in 1987 with Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Applied Molecular Biology. She undertook postdoctoral research, and subsequently held positions as an Assistant Staff Scientist, Associate Staff Scientist and Staff Scientist, in the Plant Biology Division of the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, Ardmore Oklahoma before moving to the Boyce Thompson Institute in 2003. She has served on the Board of Directors of the International Society for Molecular Plant Microbe Interactions and the Editorial boards of Annual Reviews of Plant Biology, Molecular Plant Microbe Interactions, Plant Journal, New Phytologist and eLife. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Academy for Microbiology.

Research Interests

Plants enhance their access to essential mineral nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) by developing mutualist associations with arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi. My lab has focused primarily on determining how the plant accommodates the fungal endosymbiont within its root cells, and how bidirectional nutrient exchange is achieved. Studies of phosphate transporters have revealed that transport occurs in a sub-domain of the symbiotic membrane, and that polarized trafficking of the transporters occurs by reorientation of default secretion within the colonized root cells. In addition, symbiotic phosphate transport has a regulatory function and is essential for maintenance of the association, which may have contributed to the stability of the AM symbiosis over the past 400 MY.  Our recent studies, catalyzed by phylogenomics, center on genes conserved exclusively in AM host plant species.  The coordinated activities of four AM symbiosis-conserved proteins enable roots cells to amplify and redirect lipid biosynthesis, ultimately generating an export lipid to support the fatty acid-auxotrophic fungus. Current efforts focus on the remaining AM symbiosis-conserved genes with the aim of deciphering how the cell modulates processes and pathways to enable accommodation of the fungal endosymbiont.

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