Project description:This experiment is to assess the changes of maize genes expression in response to Fusarium graminearum stains wild-type PH-1 and Δcfem1 mutant. F. graminearum is the major casual fungal pathogen of Gibberella stalk rot on maize.
Project description:Microbial communities in the rhizosphere make significant contributions to crop health and nutrient cycling. However, their ability to perform important biogeochemical processes remains uncharacterized. Important functional genes, which characterize the rhizosphere microbial community, were identified to understand metabolic capabilities in the maize rhizosphere using GeoChip 3.0-based functional gene array method.
Project description:The biotrophic fungal pathogen Ustilago maydis cause common smut in maize, and lead to gall formation on all aerial organs, especially on maize kernel thus reduce yield. The interaction of U. maydis with maize is a well-established model to study the interaction between maize and biotrophic pathogen. U. maydis infection could activate host immune responses including: ROS accumulation, protease activation, salicylic acid signaling. U. maydis employ several strategies to overcome maize immune response, thus initial the biotrophic interaction with host. It has been suggested that genetic factors of maize host affected the disease severity of U. maydis infection, here we investigated the transcriptome profile of resistance and susceptible maize lines upon U. maydis infection, thus propose candidate maize genes involved in the defense response in maize to corn smut cause by U. maydis.
Project description:Fusarium graminearum (teleomorph Gibberella zeae) is a prominent pathogen that infects major cereal crops, such as wheat, barley, and maize. To dissect molecular mechanisms of small non-coding RNA-mediated gene regulation during ascospore production, we compared small RNA transcriptomes of fungal cultures harvested from F. graminearum wild-type strain Z-3639 and RNAi component mutants at 5 days after sexual induction.
Project description:Exserohilum turcicum is a fungal pathogen that causes northern corn leaf blight and sorghum leaf blight. However, strains are host-specific, meaning a strain typically only causes disease on either maize or sorghum. This pathosystem provides a unique opportunity to identify the mechanisms underlying host specificity through genomic and transcriptomic studies. To characterize host specificity, we (i) constructed de novo annotated assemblies of one sorghum- (15St008) and one maize-specific (Et52B) E. turcicum strain, ii) identified and characterized structural changes between the two genomes, and (iii) compared differential gene expression. This GEO project contains the gene expression of the maize-specific strain (Et52B) during in planta infection of maize and in axenic cultures.
