Trilat. Project: Mango malformation: Epidemiology and simultaneous transcriptome analyses of host and fungal pathogen

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Mango (Mangifera imtica) is an important fruit tree in Israel and has the potential of becoming a major crop in Palestine. One of the major bottlenecks for the development of this crop is a devastating disease - mango malformation - caused i by the fungus Fusarium mangiferae. Mango malformation is a complicated and quite mysterious disease, that causes malformation of the inflorescences, is spread throughout mango orchards in most parts of the world, and dramatically reduces yield, causing major losses to the formers. Neither a diagnostic tool nor a cure is currently available although they are badly needed. The specific goals of this proposal are as follows: 1. Simultaneous identification ofFvsarium and mango genes induced or repressed during the infection process, by SuperSAGE. 2. Epidemiological study of the source of the inoculum, the mechanisms of infection and the ways of dispersal of the pathogen. 3. Development of a molecular diagnostic tool for the detection of the pathogen in pre- symptomatic stages of the infection. The expected results of this project will provide novel insights into both the epidemiology and the molecular basis of the infection process leading to this unique fungal disease that are currently unavailable. Applying the novel SuperSage technique, we will gain in-depth insight into the transcriptomes of two intimately interacting organisms in vivo and the transcriptome controlling the formation of inflorescences in mango.