description
- Crop diseases pose one of the most challenging problems for global food productivity and security in the immediate, mid and long term future. The fungus Zymoseptoria tritici is the causal agent of Septoria tritici blotch (STB), which is a major leaf disease of wheat. The genome of Z. tritici is fully sequenced, compact (<40Mb) and gene rich, and the fungus is highly amenable to simple laboratory mutagenesis techniques. Despite this, relatively few genes are currently known to play key roles in the virulence of Z. tritici on wheat. In addition, some wheat plants are fully resistant to certain fungal strains but it remains completely unknown what resistant plants recognise in an avirulent strain. This project will use a new "mutagenomics" approach to identify novel fungal virulence and/or avirulence genes which may represent future fungicide targets or be useful in the breeding and selection of wheat with improved disease resistance.