The Francis lab

Molecular Microbiology and Plant Pathology

@ California State University Bakersfield

Welcome

Our research focuses on plant-associated microbes, in particular those that cause disease.

Our goal is to answer fundamental and applied questions related to

communication and regulatory networks during the interaction of plant pathogenic bacteria and their host(s)
biocontrol of important agricultural diseases caused by plant pathogenic fungi and oomycetes

Please explore the tabs on the navigation bar to learn more about our research.

Isolde Francis

Associate Professor

Department of Biology

California State University Bakersfield

Bakersfield, CA 93311, USA

ifrancis@csub.edu

Announcements

January 2024

Jugraj Randhawa presented his work at the 2024 CSU BIOTECH (previously CSUPERB) symposium in Santa Clara, CA.

July 2023

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June 2023

Congratulations to Donald Hudson and Jugraj Randhawa for obtaining funding through the NSME Career Pathways program!

Two new members joined the lab, Fiya Grace Manoj and TJ Moreno, funded through the Grimm Family Center for Agricultural Business at CSUB. Thank you GFCAB for supporting our research!

May 2023

Congratulations to Francisco Ortega for obtaining his Bachelor of Science degree in Biology! With great distinction! and we look forward to welcome him back in Fall 2024 as a Master student.

March 2023

First in-person meeting after the pandemic: the Conference on Soil-borne Plant Pathogens in Salinas, CA. Loved this meeting! Great science, wonderful to reconnect with fellow plant pathologists, and having a great time with Maria Ferrer-Ruiz, PhD candidate in the lab of Dr. Richard Michelmore at UC Davis and awesome collaborator on Lettuce Corky Root.

September 2022 - January 2023

Being able to take your research to the field adds another dimension to your work. Thank you to my collaborators at the Kern County UC Extension Office and the California Fresh Carrot Advisory Board (CFCAB) for their continued support.

December 2022

Blood, sweat and tears! But a long term project finally came to a successful end. This could not have been done without the help of Danica Bergin and my long-term collaborator and friend Dr. Sebastien Rigali. I also thank previous students involved in this project, Joren Salazar, Richard Villagrana and Sagar Gupta, who finally were rewarded for their work in the lab.

So, we proudly present our new paper:

Francis, I.M., Bergin, D., Deflandre, B., Gupta, S., Salazar, J.J.C., Villagrana, R., Stulanovic, N., Ribeiro Monteiro, S., Kerff, F., Loria, R., and Rigali, S. (2023). Role of alternative elicitor transporters in the onset of plant host colonization by Streptomyces scabiei 87-22. Biology 12: 234. (web)

Congratulations to Danica Bergin for obtaining her Master in Science degree and landing a great job in Biotech!

November 2022

The SUPERSTAR team (from left to right: Tristan Bokelman, Francisco Ortega, Donald Hudson, and Kyle McDowell) presented their research at the Southern California Conference for Undergraduate Research. Thank you Dr. Zhongzhe Liu for giving our lab the opportunity to benefit from your grant!

January 2020 - September 2021

Who knows what month or even what year it is, we are in the midst of a pandemic...but here some proof we remained productive:

Gillard, J.T.F., Hernandez, A.L., Contreras, J.A., Francis, I.M., and Cabrales, L. (2021), Potential for biomass production and remediation by cultivation of the marine model diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum in oil field produced wastewater media. Water 13 (19): 2700. (web)

Vereecke, D., Fichtner, E.J., Lambert, P.Q., Cooke, P., Kilcrease, J., Stamler, R.A., Zhang, Y., Francis, I.M., and Randall, J.J. (2021). Colonization and survival capacities underlying the multifaceted life of Rhodococcus sp. PBTS1 and PBTS2. Plant Pathology DOI: 10.1111/ppa.13307. (web)

Deflandre, B., Thiebaut, N., Planckaert, S., Jourdan, S., Anderssen, S., Hanikenne, M., Devreese, B., Francis, I., Rigali, S. (2020). Deletion of bglC triggers a genetic compensation response by awakening the expression of alternative beta-glucosidase. Biochimica et Biophysica - Gene Regulatory Mechanisms 1863: 194615. (web)

May 2021 - August 2021

Congratulations to our four Master students who succesfully graduated: Misbah Chaudhry, Chanel Manzano, Favian Ramirez, and Dianna Mojica!!! All the best for the next chapter in your lives :-)

Part of Misbah's work was published in Plant Disease:

Chaudhry, M.J.ǂ , Sidhu, J.K., Nunez, J.J., Gillard, J.T.F., and Francis, I.M. (2021). First report of strains within the Pythium spinosum species complex causing carrot cavity spot in California. Plant Disease 106: 1534. (web)

More to follow, hopefully soon, for all the graduate work performed during the pandemic.

January 2020

First meeting of the year, the CSUPERB meeting. Favian Ramirez presented his work that is currently under review for publication. He received many encouraging and positive comments at the meeting, so we are keeping our fingers crossed for a positive response from the reviewers of our manuscript.

Congratulations to Misbah Chaudhry, who received a $500 scholarship from the CSUB Associated Students, Inc. (ASI). The ASI committee commented her on her application and said that her academic achievement and contribution to CSUB is inspiring.

New paper published:

Vereecke, D., Zhang, Y., Francis, I.M., Lambert, P.Q., Venneman, J.L., Stamler, R.A., Kilcrease, J., and Randall, J.J. (2020). Functional genomics insights into the pathogenicity, habitat fitness, and mechanisms modifying plant development of Rhodococcus sp. PBTS1 and PBTS2. Frontiers in Microbiology 11: 14. (web)

August 2019

Sagar Gupta represented our lab at the annual meeting of the American Phytopathological Society (APS). The meeting was held in Cleveland, Ohio. He was also selected for a mini-talk where undergraduate students presented their research in a 3-minute talk named Undergraduate Research Highlights. Awesome job!

July 2019

Busy busy BUSY summer! Dr. Danny Vereecke came to the rescue with a helping hand. Favian Ramirez worked hard and did an awesome job. Great progress was made.

June 2019

Misbah Chaudhry and Favian Ramirez received a CSUB Student Research Scholarship. What a great way to start their thesis project!

May 2019

Look at our group grow: 9 student researchers (2 missing from the picture). Great things will happen over the next coming semesters!

Finally! Yes! Our fourth try at a CSUPERB research grant was a scucces. We received funding for our work on Rhodococcus. Thank you Dr. Jeroen Gillard for teaming up with me! Now let's get on with the work ;-)

April 2019

Dr. Danny Vereecke, my close collaborator, mentor and good friend, was invited to write a review chapter on plant-associated rhodococci. I am grateful that she wanted to tackle this book chapter together with me:

Francis, I.M. and Vereecke, D. (2019). Plant-associated Rhodococcus species, for better and for worse. In Biology of Rhodococcus, vol. 16. Edited by H. Alvarez. Springer, Cham. (web)

Sagar Gupta keeps shooting for the stars. He gave a talk at the Microbiology Student Symposium at the University of Berkeley and won first prize for his poster. Congratulations!!!

March 2019

Sagar Gupta, our longest and youngest lab member, presented his research during a talk at the CSUB Student Research Competition. He won first prize in the category of Biological and Agricultural Sciences for undergraduates. Congratulations!!!!!

February 2019

The first outcome of our new collaboration with the Streptomyces group from the Universidad de la República in Montevideo, Uruguay:

Lapaz, M.I., Juarez Cisneros E., Pianzzola, M.J., and Francis, I.M. (2019) Exploring the exceptional properties of Streptomyces: a hands-on discovery of natural products. The American Biology Teacher 81(9): 658-664 . (web)

June-August 2018

We have the pleasure of hosting another PhD candidate in our lab. Maria Ines Lapaz from the Facultad de Química at the Universidad de la República in Montevideo, Uruguay, will work in our lab for three months studying her newly identified Streptomyces potato pathogen. This will be the start of a great collaboration. We will work closely together on the research while exchanging ideas to make our microbiology classes even more exciting.

January-March 2018

Benoit Deflandre, a PhD candidate from the Streptomyces Genetics and Development group of the University of Liege, Belgium, is joining our lab for three months to create specific Streptomyces mutants. It is a real pleasure having Benoit over here and lots of great work will get accomplished. We are looking forward to more results of this continuing collaboration with our fellow Belgian Strepto's.

December 2017

Our newest paper got published:

Jourdan, S., Francis, I.M., Deflandre, B., Tenconi, E., Riley, J., Planckaert, S., Tocquin, P., Martinet, L., Devreese, B., Loria, R., and Rigali, S. (2018). Contribution of the beta-glucosidase BglC to the onset of the pathogenic life style of Streptomyces scabies. Molecular Plant Pathology doi: 10.1111/mpp.12631. (web)

May 2017

Finally, the ISBA (International Symposium on the Biology of Actinomycetes) meeting! This time on the beautiful island of Jeju, South Korea. One week of indulging on the new advancements within the field of the actinomycetes, reconnecting with old friends and colleagues, and meeting new people. Richard Villagrana and I presented our posters on our work with Streptomyces scabies. Richard was even selected to introduce his work in a poster minitalk!

April 2017

Our 3 ambassadors at the Berkeley Microbiology meeting. Dianna Mojica presented her work on Rhodococcus fascians and Richard Villagrana and Joren Salazar presented their joint work on Streptomyces scabies. Joren won first prize in the oral presentation competition!!!

March 2017

New paper published:

Jourdan, S., Francis, I.M., Deflandre, B., Loria, R., and Rigali, S. (2017). Tracking the subtle mutations thriving host sensing by the plant pathogen Streptomyces scabies. mSphere 2: e00367-16. (web)

January - February 2017

Jennifer Luken, who graduated last year and worked in our lab, was recently hired as Agricultural Biologist for Kern County! We wish her all the best in this new challenge and hope to see her around from time to time.

The very first Plant Pathology course is offered at CSUB! Come explore all sorts of plant pathogens during the lectures and labs of this class.

December 2016

Celebrating the end of our very first semester and lots of good lab results. Happy holidays!

Congratulations to Richard Villagrana! He was awarded a travel grant of $1,500 to present his results at the International Symposium on the Biology of Actinomycetes (ISBA) in May 2017 in Jeju, South Korea.

July 2016

Science and fun at the meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Phytopathological Society in La Conner, Washington, and at the meeting of the International Society of Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions in Portland, Oregon.

February - July 2016

Joren Salazar presented our latest work on the cellobiose transporter in Streptomyces scabies at the Emerging Researchers National Conference in STEM, Washington DC, at our very own CSUB Student Research Scholarship (SRS) Poster Competition (he won first place in the undergraduate category for Biological and Agricultural Sciences), as well at the meeting of the International Society of Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions (IS-MPMI) in Portland, Oregon.

January 2016

2016 California Pistachio Day. Fellow scientists working on the issue of Pistachio Bushy top Syndrome caused by the pathogen Rhodococcus fascians all gave an update of their current research. More information about this disease can be found on the website of the California Pistachio Research Board.

Pistachio Day is designed to deliver the latest research-based production practices in a format that enables prospective or current pistachio growers, production managers, and pest control consultants to better achieve their pistachio-growing goals.

October 2015

A lab exercise for BIOL312 was designed in collaboration with Dr. Elizabeth Fichtner, UCCE Tulare County Advisor and specialist in fruit an nut crop diseases. Undergraduate students attempted to isolate and identify plant pathogenic bacteria from leaves donated by local nut growers. Check out the webblog "UCCE and LREC team up with CSU Bakersfield to educate microbiology students".

August 2015

On August 20, 2015, supported by the California Pistachio Research Board (CPRB), CSU Bakersfield hosted a seminar aimed to update growers, farm advisors and all who were interested on the research concerning Pistachio Bushy Top Syndrome (PBTS). This disease has affected more than 30,000 acres of UCB-1 pistachio trees in California, Arizona and New Mexico. Considering that the pistachio production in the U.S. counts for 1/5 of the total world production with a market value over U.S. $1.0 billion dollar (Stamler et al., 2015), and that a majority is located in the Bakersfield area, PBTS is a major concern in Kern County and surrounding counties. Dr. Jennifer Randall from New Mexico State University leads the research done on PBTS and has identified two bacterial strains of the genus Rhodococcus as the causative agents of the disease (Stamler et al., 2015). Other researchers involved, Dr. Elizabeth Fichtner (Citrus and Pistachio Advisor, UCCE Kern County) and Craig Kallsen (Citrus and Pistachio Advisor, UCCE Kern County) also presented at the event alongside Dr. Jennifer Randall and Dr. Danny Vereecke, a lifelong expert on Rhodococcus fascians from Ghent University, Belgium.

March 2015

Our paper has been recommended in F1000Prime as being of special significance in its field by Dr. Keith Chater!

Francis, I.M., Jourdan, S., Fanara, S., Loria, R., and Rigali, S. (2015). The cellobiose sensor CebR is the gatekeeper of Streptomyces scabies pathogenicity. mBio 6 (2): e02018-14. (web)

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