Vanishing Virulence: Investigating pathogenicity loss in a plant pathogenic fungus (TALBOT_T26DTP)

What makes a plant killer lose its edge? This project will investigate why fungal pathogens lose virulence when they are grown in laboratory culture away from their host plant. Use cutting-edge molecular biology and genomics, we will try to solve a decades-old mystery in plant pathology.

Many plant disease-causing fungi lose their ability to cause disease if they are cultured for prolonged periods in artificial media away from their plant host. The reasons for this, however, are completely unknown, but probably linked to genomic rearrangements, transposon activity or perhaps epigenetic changes. This project will investigate the phenomenon using the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe (Syn. Pyricularia) oryzae, which destroys enough rice each year to feed 60 million people, threatening global food security.

We will identify the genetic and epigenetic changes associated with prolonged sub-culture of the blast fungus using comparative genome analysis and thereby define the mechanisms associated with loss of virulence, as well as identifying novel genetic determinants of pathogenicity.

The project will provide broad training in molecular genetics, genomics, cell biology, and plant-microbe interactions. Intellectually, the project provides a challenge in understanding how genomic instability reshapes fungal virulence in a plant pathogenic fungus.