It is increasingly clear that microbes are essential components for almost all life forms on earth. Thus, understanding how microbes interact with other organisms within microbial community or inside the associated hosts are crucial for improvement of human and plant health. The major research interests in my laboratory are to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying how bacterial pathogens deploy protein secretion systems for survival at its ecological niche and successful infection inside the plant host. My laboratory investigates the mechanistic and biological insights of the two major protein secretion nanomachines, type IV and type VI secretion systems (T4SS and T6SS), in Agrobacterium tumefaciens, the causal agent of crown gall disease and powerful gene transfer tool. By investigating the mechanistic and biological functions of T4SS and T6SS, we hope to understand the underlying mechanisms how A. tumefaciens survive and overcomes several lines of host defense response for successful infection. The knowledge may provide new insights to improve Agrobacterium-mediated plant transformation and translational applications in biomedicine and/or agriculture.
More Information About Principal Investigator
Erh-Min Lai
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Research Gate
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IPMB, Academia Sinica
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News!
Jul 7, 2026 Congratulations to Victoria Yung-Hui Wen (溫永蕙) for successfully passing her Ph.D defense.
Jul 1, 2026 Welcome summer interns Chi-Ming Liu (劉其名) and Han-Chun Sung (宋瀚鈞).
Jun 30, 2026 Congratulations to Xuan Lai (賴軒) for successfully passing his Ph.D defense.
Feb 23, 2026 Congratulations to Victoria Yung-Hui Wen (溫永蕙) for being selected for the short talk in 2026 EMBO Workshop “Evolving Together: From Genomics to Biological Interactions” to be held on April 24-27, 2026 in Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
Feb 21, 2026 Congratulations to Hagos Mohammedseid Juhar (哈格斯) for being awarded the Hope E. Hopps Award and the Student Travel Award to attend the Society for In Vitro Biology (SIVB) 2026 Annual Meeting held in Reno, Nevada, USA at June 6-10, 2026.
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New Publications!
Preprint
An N-degron proteolytic pathway modulates recipient susceptibility to T6SS DNase effectors
Wen YHV, Lin HH, Zheng XT, Hwang HH, Lai EM*.
Preprint
Co-option of a degenerated polysaccharide transporter for type VI protein secretion across diverse α-Proteobacteria
Sung LK, Lin JS, Wang YC, Wu CF, Hsu HW, Chang J, Kuo CH, Lai EM*.
Article
Floral Stage Optimization and Immune Evasion Enhance Agrobacterium-Mediated Genome Editing in Arabidopsis
Liu MS, Huang TK, Wang YC, Wang SC, Wu CH, Kuo CH, Lai EM*.