Award details

Novel strategies for identifying signal sensing and transducting factors in plant pathogenic fungi

Reference	BBS/E/C/00824111
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor John Lucas
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	Rothamsted Research
Department	Rothamsted Research Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	150,851
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/04/2000
End date	30/09/2000
Duration	6 months

Abstract

Many plant pathogenic fungi initiate the disease process by sensing external stimuli and forming infection structures on the surface of the host plant. This project aims to develop a novel strategy for identifying genes involved in signal sensing and infection structure induction using the cereal eyespot pathogen Tapesia yallundae as a model system. The strategy uses an inducible fungal promoter coupled to a toxin subunit gene which is only active within transformed cells under inducing conditions. Hence this can be used as a powerful positive selection system to efficiently screen large numbers of mutants affected in signal perception and transduction pathways essential for pathogenesis. Mutations identified by this method will be used to clone and characterize the corresponding wild-type genes, some of which will represent novel targets for chemical intervention.Objectives:1. Development of promoter:tox constructs.2. Transformation of Tapesia with constructs.3. Assessment of transformants.4. Expression studies to evaluate effects on fungal development.5. Mutant production and screening for infection structure formation.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Plant & Microbial Sciences (PMS)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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