Pathogenicity Determinants in Smut Fungi Revealed by Genome Comparison

• DOI: 10.1126/science.1195330
• Publication Date: 2010-12-09T19:25:22Z
• Authors: Jan Schirawski; Gertrud Mannhaupt; Karin Münch; Thomas Brefort; Kerstin Schipper; Gunther Doehlemann; Maurizio Di Stasio; Nicole Rössel; Artemio Mendoza-M...; Doris Pester; Olaf Müller; Britta Winterberg; Elmar Meyer; Hassan Ghareeb; Theresa Wollenberg; Martin Münsterkötter; Philip Wong; Mathias Walter; Eva Stukenbrock; Ulrich Güldener; Regine Kahmann
• Keywords: 2. Zero hunger; 0301 basic medicine; Virulence; Virulence Factors; Molecular Sequence Data; Molecular Sequence Annotation; Sequence Analysis, DNA; 15. Life on land; Synteny; Zea mays; Evolution, Molecular; Fungal Proteins; 03 medical and health sciences; Multigene Family; Host-Pathogen Interactions; Ustilago; RNA Interference; Genome, Fungal; Ustilaginales; Conserved Sequence; Gene Deletion; Plant Diseases

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.