FOUNDATION · Fusarium oxysporum mediated underpinning of cell type-specific modulation in multiple host interaction
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2018-07-01 → 2020-06-30
- EU contribution
- €170,122
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Fusarium oxysporum mediated underpinning of cell type-specific modulation in multiple host interaction
Fungal pathogens have a dramatic impact on human nutrition by reducing crop productivity. Many fungal-plant interactions occur in the soil and crucially affect plant health. Very little is known on how soil-borne pathogens infect roots and deal with host immunity. A particularly destructive group of root-infecting fungi cause vascular-wilts, which attack many crops, colonizing the roots and cause progressive wilting. These diseases are amongst the most difficult to control, as the pathogens are usually inaccessible to chemicals being inside roots. Therefore, they are controlled with unspecific compounds for fumigation that have a detrimental effect. To generate a sustainable solution against these fungi, a comprehensive understanding of how these pathogens establish compatibility across diverse hosts and the plant processes they target is crucially needed. The fungal genus Fusarium contains many soil-borne pathogens causing wilting diseases in numerous crops. Currently, there is little information on the crucial biotrophic infection stage (living phase) of Fusarium. The fungus penetrates the roots and ultimately colonizes the xylem, leading to death/no death and even endophytic lifestyles. Therefore, Fusarium is an excellent model to investigate multi-host compatibility and immune suppression. Controlling soilborne phytopathogens is very difficult, due to their high persistence and striking capacity to adapt to the host plant and to the environment. Because most soil fungicides are now banned by EU legislation, there is an urgent need to develop new control strategies, which need to be efficient, durable and environmentally friendly. Identifying the molecular events that underpin disease development across diverse hosts resolves the longstanding question on how these fungi sense the host vascular system. This is of fundamental interest in microbial interactions. The overall aim of my proposal is to understand the mechanisms underlying plant colonization by F. oxysporum to conquer a broad host range. My hypothesis is that alteration of the intercellular space (apoplast) where the pathogen mainly resides during the biotrophic stages on host/non-host will serve as a site for action of ´core´ pathogenicity determinants to colonize a broad spectrum of agronomically important crops.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Fungi have a devastating impact on human nutrition and health. Each year, fungal pathogens provoke enormous agricultural losses in crop plants and contaminating food with harmful mycotoxins. The soil-borne fungal pathogen Fusarium oxysporum infects plant root and vascular tissue, causing wilt disease in over a hundred different crops, including both dicots and monocots. A particular aggressive strain of this pathogen, tropical race 4, is threatening banana plantations worldwide. Currently, there is little information on the crucial biotrophic infection stage of vascular pathogens, from penetration of root to colonization of xylem vessels. Fusarium provides an excellent model to investigate the cell-specific sensing and adaptation and suppression of plant immunity related to early infection stages. The host group has recently reported the chemotrophic sensing mechanism used by this pathogen, and identified host plant signals perceived by Fusarium in the soil. Moreover, their work revealed a combined action of enzymes involved in fungal cell wall remodelling and plant cell wall degradation which contributes in virulence of this pathogen. In this project, we aim to identify the cell-specific virulence genes that F. oxysporum uses to colonize a dicot host (Arabidopsis) versus monocot (Banana) that has a fundamentally distinct vascular tissue architecture. We will use dual RNA-Seq coupled with Laser capture microdissection (LCM) to identify core compatibility components in both the pathogen and the plant, that are essential for establishing wilt disease. This will lead to identification and characterization of potential targets in this interaction that could be used to develop novel resistance strategies in ongoing banana breeding efforts. This project will thus advance fundamental knowledge of how a fungus senses and colonizes such a broad host range, while creating new opportunities for crop protection by dissecting the interaction at a cell-type specific resolution.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSIDAD DE CORDOBA · CORDOBACoordinatorSpain
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union