Deciphering the cannabis-powdery mildew interactions using genomics

植物病害每年造成相当大的损失，威胁全球粮食安全。育种作物对病原菌的抗性通常被认为是控制疾病和减少损失的最环保的方法。然而，其中一个挑战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对植物免疫和微生物毒性的基本知识，这将有助于开发新的战略，以持久和可持续的抗病在重要农作物。遗传学和基因组学的最新进展有助于揭开植物-微生物相互作用的复杂性，并破译构成抗性的基因和机制。这些代表了一种改变游戏规则的方法，它将从根本上改变我们培育抗病植物的方式。事实上，这种知识可以通过更知情的育种战略极大地促进作物改良，这些育种战略利用不同规模的各种形式的抗性，从单一植物的基因组到在一个地区部署的植物品种。在这一部分中，我们旨在剖析大麻-白粉病相互作用的遗传和分子基础，目的是识别致病性和抗性决定因素。我们推测，大麻种植面积的迅速扩大已经对白粉病的种群结构产生了深远的影响，大麻和白粉病之间复杂的共同进化模式可以追溯到大麻材料之间的无数防御机制。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因素。这将通过发现赠款中提议的研究活动来实现：目标1--大麻白粉病的致病基因组学；目标2--从大麻多样性小组中确定抗药性来源；目标3--表征PM抗药性的细胞和分子机制。重要意义：迫切需要协调努力，量化大麻的遗传多样性，特别是在抗病方面。我们现在有办法和资源来开发大麻种质中存在的巨大遗传变异，并将这一知识的应用直接简化到改进方案中。这将大大加快对杀虫剂使用依赖程度较低的品种的开发，不仅降低种植成本，还会降低化学防治引发的环境风险。此外，我们的研究计划为HQP在实验和计算科学方面提供了一个独特的培训机会，这些都是维持生物科学部门所必需的技能，并将为一系列职业道路提供极好的准备。

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.