Signatures of Adaptation to Obligate Biotrophy in the Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis Genome

• DOI: 10.1126/science.1195203
• Publication Date: 2010-12-09T19:25:22Z
• Authors: Laura Baxter; Sucheta Tripathy; Naveed Ishaque; Nico Boot; Adriana Cabral; Eric Kemen; Marco Thines; Audrey Ah-Fong; Ryan Anderson; Wole Badejoko; Peter Bittner-Eddy; Jeffrey L. Boore; Marcus C. Chibucos; Mary Coates; Paramvir Dehal; Kim Delehaunty; Suomeng Dong; Polly Downton; Bernard Dumas; Georgina Fabro; Catrina Fronick; Susan I. Fuersten...; Lucinda Fulton; Elodie Gaulin; Francine Govers; Linda Hughes; Sean Humphray; Rays H. Y. Jiang; Howard Judelson; Sophien Kamoun; Kim Kyung; Harold Meijer; Patrick Minx; Paul Morris; Joanne Nelson; Vipa Phuntumart; Dinah Qutob; Anne Rehmany; Alejandra Rougon-...; Peter Ryden; Trudy Torto-Alalibo; David Studholme; Yuanchao Wang; Joe Win; Jo Wood; Sandra W. Clifton; Jane Rogers; Guido Van den Ack...; Jonathan D. G. Jones; John M. McDowell; Jim Beynon; Brett M. Tyler
• Keywords: Phytophthora; Spores; sojae-effector avr1b; Molecular Sequence Data; Arabidopsis; Gene Dosage; plant; parasites; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; Synteny; Evolution, Molecular; 03 medical and health sciences; thaliana; Amino Acid Sequence; Selection, Genetic; Plant Diseases; 2. Zero hunger; 0303 health sciences; Genome; downy mildew; Proteins; Sequence Analysis, DNA; phytophthora; suppression; 15. Life on land; Adaptation, Physiological; proteins; Enzymes; Genes; Oomycetes; Host-Pathogen Interactions; cells; delivery; Metabolic Networks and Pathways

From Blight to Powdery Mildew

Pathogenic effects of microbes on plants have widespread consequences. Witness, for example, the cultural upheavals driven by potato blight in the 1800s. A variety of microbial pathogens continue to afflict crop plants today, driving both loss of yield and incurring the increased costs of control mechanisms. Now, four reports analyze microbial genomes in order to understand better how plant pathogens function (see the Perspective by

Dodds

).

Raffaele et al.

(p. 1540 ) describe how the genome of the potato blight pathogen accommodates transfer to different hosts.

Spanu et al.

(p. 1543 ) analyze what it takes to be an obligate biotroph in barley powdery mildew, and

Baxter et al.

(p. 1549 ) ask a similar question for a natural pathogen of Arabidopsis .

Schirawski et al.

(p. 1546 ) compared genomes of maize pathogens to identify virulence determinants. Better knowledge of what in a genome makes a pathogen efficient and deadly is likely to be useful for improving agricultural crop management and breeding.