Press Releases 2007
Insights in the major wheat fungal plant pathogen Fusarium graminearum
A healthy wheat head (left) stands in contrast to one inoculated with Fusarium graminearum. Photo: Keith Weller, Wikipedia Commons.
The plant pathogenic fungus Fusarium graminearum has been known to cause a deadly condition known as Fusarium head blight of wheat and barley, and is one of the most significant plant pathogens worldwide. The Broad Institute has sequenced the genome of this fungus that can devastate crops and sicken humans and livestock that ingest grain infected with it.
Structural gene annotation at the Institute for Bioinformatics reveals ~14,000 genes in the 36 Mb genome (http://mips.gsf.de/genre/proj/fusarium/). By comparison with a second partially sequenced strain, 10.500 SNPs were identified, which are distributed in a biased manner with 50 percent found within 13 percent of the sequence. These distinct regions of high diversity were found in subtelomeric regions of several hundred Kb and in addition in central regions of the 4 chromosomes. The regions co-localize with regions of high recombination rate suggesting that these regions evolving much more rapidly and that may be how the pathogens avoid detection. In addition several groups of genes related to pathogenicity or genes which are specific to the species are also significantly overrepresented in these regions. For example 408 genes which are upregulated during fungal infection of barley or 704 genes which are not present in 4 closely related species.
This enrichment for potential infection-related genes may allow the fungus to adapt rapidly to changing environments or host. Recognition of these high-diversity areas of the genome focuses the direction of future work toward those regions that may have the greatest potential in elucidating the dynamics of host pathogen interactions. Future comparative genome analysis will also focus on this topic and may reveal if this trait is specific to the species, the genus Fusarium or may also be a feature of more divergent species.
Beside the GSF researchers scientists at the Broad Institute; the University of Minnesota; Cornell University; Michigan State University; the United States Department of Agriculture; and others participated in the collaborative effort.
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Cuomo CA, Güldener U, Xu JR, Trail F, Turgeon BG, Di Pietro A, Walton JD, Ma LJ, Baker SE, Rep M, Adam G, Antoniw J, Baldwin T, Calvo S, Chang YL, Decaprio D, Gale LR, Gnerre S, Goswami RS, Hammond-Kosack K, Harris LJ, Hilburn K, Kennell JC, Kroken S, Magnuson JK, Mannhaupt G, Mauceli E, Mewes HW, Mitterbauer R, Muehlbauer G, Münsterkötter M, Nelson D, O'donnell K, Ouellet T, Qi W, Quesneville H, Roncero MI, Seong KY, Tetko IV, Urban M, Waalwijk C, Ward TJ, Yao J, Birren BW, Kistler HC. The Fusarium graminearum genome reveals a link between localized polymorphism and pathogen specialization. Science. 2007 Sep 7;317(5843):1400-2. PMID: 17823352
- PubMed Abstract: Weiter...
- Homepage des Institut für Bioinformatik: Weiter...
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Neuherberg, 13 September 2007