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Origins and evolution of pathogens

An article in PLoS Pathogens by Morris et al describe a hypothesis about the evolution and origins of plant pathogens applying the parallel theories to the emergence of medically relevant pathogens. The authors highlight the importance of understanding the evolution of organisms in the context of emerging pathogens like Puccinia Ug99 for our ability [...]

Will you always be able to satisfy that chocolate craving?

Crinipellis_perniciosa_mushroomNPR had a story this weekend on Cocoa plantation collapse and the ecological aftermath of the changes the witches’ broom fungus [[Moniliophthora perniciosa]] has wreaked. The genome sequence project for this Homobasidiomycete fungus is [...]

Phytophthora work highlighted

A link to the story about Matteo Garbelotto’s work on Phytophthora ramorum and showing that the source in California is likely from ornamentals from a nursery. The work is to appear soon in Molecular Ecology but alas is not available yet.

A recent paper on updated Phytophthora phylogeny from Jamie Blair and co-authors is also out in FGB. [...]

DuPont donates genome sequence of maize pathogen

DuPont/Pioneer Hi-Bred has donated the genome sequence of the Sordariomycete Colletotrichum graminicola into the public domain by depositing the sequence in GenBank.  The FGI through the Broad Institute are also sequencing a strain of C. graminicola (teleomorph Glomerella [...]

Banana black leaf fungus sequenced

The JGI have released the genome sequence and annotation of the Mycosphaerella fijiensis fungus an important crop pathogen of bananas. This Dothideomycete fungus is one of several in the clade of important plant pathogens that have been sequenced recently including M. gramicola, a relative that causes wheat-blotch.

Fusarium graminearum genome published

The genome of the wheat and cereal pathogen Fusarium graminearum was published in Science this week in an article entitled “The Fusarium graminearum Genome Reveals a Link Between Localized Polymorphism and Pathogen Specializationtion”. The project was a collaboration of many different Fusarium research groups. [...]

Genomes on the horizon at JGI

Several more fungi are on the docket for sequencing at JGI through their community sequencing program. This includes

Fungus could cause a food shortage

A while back, Jason blogged briefly on a New Scientists article about the rise of a new Puccinia graminis strain, Ug99, that is spreading through West African wheat fields at an enormous rates. It looks like this story is growing in the scientific conciousness, as Science is now running an article on the spread of this wheat [...]

Puccinia black stem rust disease spreading

The New Scientist has an article about the spread of black stem rust caused by Puccinia graminis. We briefly mentioned the 1st release of a Puccinia genome in January. Some more links about the spread of the Ug99 virulent strain.

That was a lot of work

I’ve never worked with Magnaporthe grisea, the fungus responsible for rice blast, one of the most devastating crop diseases, but I do know that its life cycle is complicated and that knocking out roughly 61% of the genes in the genome and evaluating the mutant phenotype to infer gene function is not trivial. In their recent letter to Nature, Jeon et al did what [...]