Investigating the biology of appressorium-mediated plant infection by the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe grisea

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The aim of this project is to understand how rice plants become infected with a very serious disease called rice blast. Rice blast disease destroys up to 30% of the rice harvest each year and is a serious and recurrent threat to food security. Rice blast is caused by a fungus and this project is aimed at determining why this fungus is able to cause such a serious disease and defining which of its genes and their associated products are necessary for disease to occur. This project aims to study this disease from the point at which the fungus lands on the leaf surface until it breaches the cuticle and gains entry to the leaf. The rice blast fungus develops a special pressure cell that it uses to puncture the leaf cuticle and gain entry to living plant tissues, in which it grows and feeds. This project will explore the biology that leads to development of the specialised pressure cells produced by the rice blast fungus. Specifially, we will look at the release of reactive oxygen species in these cells, which we have already shown are necessary for disease to occur. We will then go on to study the physiology of infection cells of the fungus and determine how these cells use an enzyme called trehalose-6-phosphate as a sensor of starvation/nutrient availability that is necessary for plant infection. Collectively, this research project, will provide an insight into the biology of plant infection by one of the most important crop diseases in the world today. This will be used to inform new disease control strategies that are urgently required. In addition to the global significance of rice blast, knowledge gained from this project is also of potential benefit to UK agriculture because similar fungi affect our major cereal crops, barley and wheat, and share a similar underlying biology. The development of broad spectrum, disease control strategies that will benefit agricultural production and the consumer is the long term strategic aim of this research.