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Wheat Pathogenomics 

Programme Leader - Professor Kim Hammond-Kosack

This programme (formerly referred to as the wheat pathogenesis programme) commenced in April 2002 and aims to identify common themes permitting fungi and viruses to attack wheat and the key plant components orchestrating defence responses. This has been achieved by functional genomic approaches, such as homologous recombination for fungal gene knockouts, Agrobacterium-mediated fungal transformation, fungal transcriptome analyses, exploiting diploid wheat, TILLING and EcoTILLING to assess allelic diversity and by comparative wheat, rice and maize array experiments. Unusually, the group will focus equally on defining the function of both plant and pathogen genes. Understanding these systems at the cellular and the whole plant level will lead to new options for crop improvement and disease control.

 

Major research areas

Fusarium ear blight

Principal staff involved: Kim Hammond-Kosack, Richard Gutteridge (epidemiology and control), John Antoniw (bioinformatics), Martin Urban (molecular biology) and Rohan Lowe (metabolomics).

 

Fusarium species can invade cereals when they are flowering. The grain produced will then be of poor quality and may also contain mycotoxins, chemicals that are released by the fungus and which are toxic to both animals and humans. Objectives of our research include:
  • Examining the molecular basis of plant defence to Fusarium
  • Characterising the gene networks/pathways controlling in planta induction of trichothecene mycotoxins
  • Pathogen characterisation: particularly the identification and characterisation of pathogenicity genes
  • Disease control: the use of host plant resistance and biological control

Fusarium ear blight

Septoria leaf blotch/Mycosphaerella

Principal staff involved: Jason Rudd, John Antoniw (bioinformatics), Kostya Kanyuka (genetics).

 

Septoria leaf blotch

Septoria leaf blotch, caused by Septoria tritici (teleomorph, Mycosphaerella graminicola), is consistently the most damaging leaf disease of cereals in the UK. Objectives of our research include:
  • Pathogen characterisation: particularly transcription profiling and infection biology
  • Epidemiology and control: crop canopy architecture has a major influence on the incidence and severity of disease. We are seeking to understand the interactions and to exploit them to decrease disease severity.

Cereal viruses

Principal staff involved: Kostya Kanyuka, Bernhard Hofinger (eIF4E-mediated resistance in barley).

 
Our work focuses on understanding and controlling the soil-borne mosaic viruses of cereals (especially wheat and barley). These diseases are serious in most temperate regions where winter cereals are grown and are not amenable to control by pesticides. They are transmitted by an obligate root-infecting parasite, Polymyxa graminis which is a member of the order Plasmodiophorales. Objectives of our research include:
  • Virus resistance: detection, characterisation and exploitation of genetic resistance to the viruses
  • Virus characterisation: particularly the use of molecular techniques to understand how viruses can overcome host plant resistance
  • RNA plant virus vector systems for functional genomics (VIGS) in wheat


Barley yellow mosaic virus (BaYMV)

Eyespot

Principal staff involved: John Lucas.

 

Typical eyespot lesion

Eyespot is a fungal disease that invades the stem base of cereals, resulting in lodging and loss of yield. It is caused by Oculimacula (=Tapesia) yallundae and O. acuformis. The work in this programme aims to understand the factors leading to the production of the distinctive "plaque" structures that are formed between leaf sheaths when these pathogens infect.

Take-all

Principal staff involved: Richard Gutteridge.

 
Take-all image
Take-all patch in field plots

Take-all is a fungal disease (caused by Gaeumannomyces graminis) that attacks the roots of cereals, resulting in poor growth, premature senescence and loss of yield. It is the most serious and intractable of all cereal diseases. The work in this programme concentrates on integrated use of fungicides, as a basis for developing management strategies.

Wheat genetic improvement

Principal staff involved: Kim Hammond-Kosack, Hai-Chun Jing, Elke Anzinger.

 
This is a more general interest that extends across all these pathogens and beyond. We contribute significantly to the UK Wheat Genetic Improvement Network (WGIN) and in particular aim to develop the PCR Tilling technology as a robust method for exploring allele diversity for diploid and hexaploid wheat.

Funding is from a Defra commission (AR0709) and a BBSRC JREI equipment grant.

PHI-base: Pathogen Host Interactions Database

Principal staff involved: Kim Hammond-Kosack, Martin Urban.

 

This database contains expertly curated molecular and biological information on genes proven to affect the outcome of pathogen-host interactions. It can be accessed at: http://www.phi-base.org/

PUBLICATIONS ON PHI-BASE
Winnenburg R, Urban M, Beacham A, Baldwin TK, Holland S, Lindeberg M, Hansen H, Rawlings C, Hammond-Kosack KE, Köhler J (2007) PHI-base update: Additions to the Pathogen Host Interaction Database. Nucleic Acids Research Database issue, 1-5 (available on-line doi:10.1093/nar/gkm858)

Baldwin TK, Winnenburg R, Urban M, Rawlings C, Köhler J, Hammond-Kosack KE (2006) The Pathogen-Host Interactions database (PHI-base) provides insights into generic and novel themes of pathogenicity. Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactinons 19: 1451-62.

Winnenburg R, Baldwin TK, Urban M, Rawlings C, Köhler J, Hammond-Kosack KE (2006) PHI-base: a new database for pathogen host interactions. Nucleic Acids Research. 34 (Database issue): D459-D464.

Links to project pages

Vacancies in the programme