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Prof. John LucasHead of PPM Department and Programme leader for Plant Pathogen Population Biology and Disease Management |
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The Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology comprises around 70 staff, students and visiting scientists working on major diseases of arable crops caused by fungi, nematodes and viruses. The aims of the research are to understand how pathogenic species cause disease and to devise new or better ways of preventing it.
My own research interests mainly concern fungi attacking cereal crops, such as Oculimacula species (Tapesia, cause of eyespot disease) and Mycosphaerella graminicola, cause of Septoria leaf blotch. I am particularly interested in mechanisms underlying pathogen variation, such as new pathotypes, or the development of resistance to fungicides (Fungicide Resistance Group). With new information emerging from fungal genomics there is now the real possibility of identifying the key differences between pathogens and non-pathogenic species, and selecting new targets for diagnostics and disease control.
Fraaije, B. A., Cools, H. J., Kim, S.-H., Motteram, J., Clark, W. S., and Lucas, J. A. (2007) A novel substitution I381V in the sterol 14a-demethylase (CYP51) of Mycosphaerella graminicola is differentially selected by azole fungicides. Molecular Plant Pathology 8, 245-254.
Latunde-Dada, A. O., and Lucas, J. A. (2007) Localized hemibiotrophy in Colletotrichum: cytological and molecular taxonomic similarities among C. destructivum, C. linicola and C. truncatum. Plant Pathology 56, 443-447.
Cools, H. J., Fraaije, B. A., Kim S.-H., and Lucas, J. A. (2006) Impact of changes in the target P450 CYP51 enzyme association with altered triazole-sensitivity in fungal pathogens of cereal crops. Biochemical Society Transactions 34, 1219-1222.
Fraaije, B. A., Cools, H. J., Fountaine, J., Lovell, D. J., Motteram, J., West, J. S., and Lucas, J. A. (2005) The role of ascospores in further spread of QoI-resistant cytochrome b alleles (G143A) in field populations of Mycosphaerella graminicola. Phytopathology 95, 933-941.
Eckert, M., Maguire, K., Urban, M., Foster, S., Fitt, B., Lucas, J., and Hammond-Kosack K E (2005) Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation of Leptosphaeria spp. and Oculimacula spp. with the reef coral gene DsRed and the jellyfish gene gfp. FEMS Letters 253, 67-74.
Lucas, J. A. (2004) Survival, surfaces and susceptibility - the sensory biology of pathogens. Plant Pathology 53, 679-691.
Borges, A. A., Cools, H. J., and Lucas, J. A. (2003) Menadone sodium bisulphite: a novel plant defence activator which enhances local and systemic resistance to infection by Leptosphaeria maculans in oilseed rape. Plant Pathology 52, 429-436.
Lopez, A, M., and Lucas, J. A. (2002) Effects of plant defence activators on anthracnose disease of cashew. European Journal of Plant Pathology 108, 409-420.
Campbell, G. F., Lucas, J. A., and Crous, P. W. (2002) Evidence of recombination between net- and spot-type populations of Pyrenophora teres as determined by RAPD analysis. Mycological Research 106, 606-608.
Latunde-Dada, A. O., and Lucas, J. A. (2001) The plant defence activator acibenzolar-S-methyl primes cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.) seedlings for rapid induction of resistance. Physiological and Molecular Plant Pathology 58, 199-208.
Wood, H. M., Dickinson, M. J., Lucas, J. A., and Dyer, P. S. (2001) Cloning of the CYP51 gene from the eyespot pathogen Tapesia yallundae indicates that resistance to the DMI fungicide prochloraz is not related to sequence changes in the gene encoding the target site enzyme. FEMS Microbiology Letters 196, 183-187.
Bowyer, P., Mueller, E., and Lucas J. (2000) Use of an isocitrate lyase promoter-GFP fusion to monitor carbon metabolism of the plant pathogen Tapesia yallundae during infection of wheat. Molecular Plant Pathology 1, 253-262.
Dyer, P. S., Hansen, J., Delaney, A., and Lucas, J. A. (2000) Genetic control of resistance to the sterol 14α-demethylase inhibitor fungicide prochloraz in the cereal eyespot pathogen Tapesia yallundae. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 66, 4599-4604.
Lucas, J. A., Dyer, P. S., and Murray, T. D. (2000) Pathogenicity, host-specificity, and population biology of Tapesia spp., causal agents of eyespot disease in cereals. Advances in Botanical Research 33, 226-258.