Kgalaletso Othibeng

The postgraduate research background of Ms. Kgalaletso Othibeng has been centered around plant metabolomics. Briefly, her MSc project focused on applying 4IR-inspired e-infrastructures to investigate the modes of action of a microbial (PGPR) and a non-microbial (HS)- based biostimulant on maize plants under normal and abiotic stress conditions. Currently, she is a PhD candidate at the University of Johannesburg and her project aims at decoding the metabolism of selected South African medicinal plants, providing novel insights into the specialized metabolic landscapes of the plants, as well as discovery of novel metabolites with beneficial activities. This untargeted LC-MS-based metabolomics work explores and applies emerging computational tools and strategies to mine and interpret spectral data.

In CropPrime Ms. Othinbeng carried out a 3-month secondment at BC-CAS. Her project investigated the effect of the Laminaria extract L1 biostimulant on tomato plants under biotic stress (Pseudomonas syringae DC3000) at the molecular level. To further elucidate the effect of L1 in tomato plants (in addition to the infection studies), she also assessed MAPK activation, ROS production and plasmodesmal callose deposition. Techniques adopted and performed during the stay at BC-CAS included ROS burst, MAP kinase activation and callose deposition assays. The obtained results demonstrated that the used L1 concentration showed minimal effect on the tomato plants. Therefore, an optimization study to identify the suitable concentration to use for tomato plants is recommended as continuation of this work.