Deciphering the cannabis-powdery mildew interactions using genomics

植物病害每年造成相当大的损失，威胁着全球粮食安全。育种作物抗病原体通常被认为是管理疾病和减少损失的最环保的方法。然而，挑战之一是确保这种抵抗是有效和持久的。我的研究计划的长期目标是提高我们在植物免疫和微生物毒力方面的基础知识，这将有助于制定新的战略，使重要的农业作物具有持久和可持续的抗病能力。遗传学和基因组学的最新进展有助于揭示植物与微生物相互作用的复杂性，并破译抗性背后的基因和机制。这代表了一种改变游戏规则的方法，将从根本上改变我们培育抗病植物的方式。事实上，这些知识可以通过更明智的育种策略极大地促进作物改良，这些育种策略利用不同规模的多种形式的抗性，从单一植物的基因组到在一个地区内部署的植物品种。在这一期中，我们的目的是剖析大麻-白粉病相互作用的遗传和分子基础，以确定致病性和抗性决定因素。我们假设大麻种植面积的迅速扩大对白粉病的种群结构产生了深远的影响，并且大麻和白粉病之间复杂的共同进化模式可以追溯到大麻中无数的防御机制。为了解决这些假设，我们将首先调查大麻白粉病的种群动态，并使用各种组学方法来确定这种相互作用的关键参与者。这将通过发现基金中提出的研究活动来完成：目标1 -大麻白粉病的病理基因组学；目标2 -从大麻多样性小组确定耐药性来源；目的3 -表征PM耐药性的细胞和分子机制。意义：迫切需要协调一致的努力来量化大麻的遗传多样性，特别是在抗病方面。我们现在有方法和资源来利用大麻种质中存在的巨大遗传变异，并将这些知识直接应用到改进计划中。这将大大加快对农药依赖程度较低的品种的开发，不仅降低了种植成本，而且减少了化学控制带来的环境风险。此外，我们的研究项目为HQP在实验和计算科学方面提供了一个独特的培训机会，这是维持生物科学部门所需的高度需要的技能，并将为一系列职业道路提供良好的准备。

Plant diseases are responsible for considerable losses each year and threaten global food security. Breeding crop resistance to pathogens is usually considered as the most environmentally friendly method for managing diseases and reducing losses. However, one of the challenges is to ensure that such resistance is effective and durable. The long-term objective of my research program is to improve our fundamental knowledge on plant immunity and microbial virulence, which will help develop new strategies toward durable and sustainable disease resistance in important agricultural crops. Recent advances in genetics and genomics can contribute to unravel the complexity of plant-microbe interactions and decipher the genes and mechanisms that underlie resistance. These represent a game-changing approach that will fundamentally alter the way we generate disease resistant plants. Indeed, such knowledge can greatly benefit crop improvement through better-informed breeding strategies that exploit diverse forms of resistance at different scales, from the genome of a single plant to the plant varieties deployed within a region. In this installment, we aim to dissect the genetic and molecular basis of the cannabis-powdery mildew interaction with the goal of identifying pathogenicity and resistance determinants. We hypothesize that the rapid expansion of cultivated areas of cannabis has had a profound impact on the population structure of powdery mildew, and that the intricate coevolutionary patterns between cannabis and powdery mildew trace back to a myriad of defense mechanisms among cannabis accessions. To address these hypotheses, we will first investigate the population dynamics of cannabis powdery mildew and use a variety of omics approaches to determine the key players of this interaction. This will be accomplished through the research activities proposed in the Discovery Grant: Aim 1 - Pathogenomics of cannabis powdery mildew; Aim 2 - Identification of sources of resistance from a cannabis diversity panel; Aim 3 - Characterization of cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying PM resistance. Significance: There is an urgent need for a coordinated effort to quantify the genetic diversity of cannabis, especially with regards to disease resistance. We now have approaches and resources to exploit the vast genetic variation present in the cannabis germplasm and streamline application of this knowledge directly into improvement programs. This will greatly accelerate the development of varieties which are less dependent on the use of pesticides, not only decreasing cultivation costs but also the environmental risks instigated by chemical control. Moreover, our research program represents a unique training opportunity for HQP in both experimental and computational science, which are highly needed skills required to sustain the biosciences sector and will provide excellent preparation for a range of career paths.