Innovating Works

conVIRgens

Financiado
De and reconstructing virulence strategies of fungal plant pathogens
Fungal pathogens are enormous threats to plants, causing tremendous losses in worldwide crop production. Mechanistic understanding of fungal virulence is crucial to developing novel plant protection strategies in sustainable agric... Fungal pathogens are enormous threats to plants, causing tremendous losses in worldwide crop production. Mechanistic understanding of fungal virulence is crucial to developing novel plant protection strategies in sustainable agriculture. Biotrophic pathogens colonize living plant tissue and reprogram their hosts to stimulate proliferation and development of infection structures. To promote infection, fungal pathogens secrete sets of virulence proteins termed effectors in a spatiotemporal program. Many economically relevant biotrophs like rusts and powdery mildew fungi are obligate pathogens. These organisms cannot be grown in culture and are not amenable to reverse genetics, which is a severe constraint for current research. In contrast, the biotrophic smut fungi have a haploid yeast stage, which allows simple cultivation and genetic modification. The causal agent of corn smut disease, Ustilago maydis, is one of the best-established model organisms for fungal genetics. This project aims to utilize the excellent genetic accessibility of U. maydis to approach a previously impossible, pioneering enterprise: the synthetic reconstruction of eukaryotic plant pathogens. In a first step, fungal virulence will be deconstructed by consecutive deletion of the U. maydis effector repertoire to generate disarmed mutants. These strains will serve as chassis for subsequent reconstruction of fungal pathogenicity from different sources. A combination of transcriptomics and comparative genomics will help to define synthetic effector modules to reconstruct virulence in the chassis strains. Deconstruction of U. maydis virulence will identify a complete arsenal of fungal virulence factors. Reconstruction of virulence will show how effector modules determine fungal virulence, including those of the previously not accessible obligate biotrophs. conVIRgens will thereby provide fundamentally new insights and novel functional tools towards the understanding of microbial virulence. ver más
31/05/2024
UNIVERSITAT ZU KOL...
2M€
Perfil tecnológico estimado
Duración del proyecto: 75 meses Fecha Inicio: 2018-02-15
Fecha Fin: 2024-05-31

Línea de financiación: concedida

El organismo H2020 notifico la concesión del proyecto el día 2024-05-31
Línea de financiación objetivo El proyecto se financió a través de la siguiente ayuda:
ERC-2017-COG: ERC Consolidator Grant
Cerrada hace 7 años
Presupuesto El presupuesto total del proyecto asciende a 2M€
Líder del proyecto
UNIVERSITAT ZU KOLN No se ha especificado una descripción o un objeto social para esta compañía.
Perfil tecnológico TRL 4-5