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

这个项目的目的是了解水稻是如何感染一种非常严重的疾病——稻瘟病的。稻瘟病每年破坏高达30%的水稻收成，是对粮食安全的严重和经常性威胁。稻瘟病是由一种真菌引起的，这个项目旨在确定为什么这种真菌能够引起如此严重的疾病，并确定它的哪些基因及其相关产物是发生疾病所必需的。该项目旨在研究这种疾病，从真菌降落在叶片表面直到它突破角质层并进入叶片。稻瘟病菌发育出一种特殊的压力细胞，用来刺穿叶片角质层，进入活的植物组织，在那里生长和进食。该项目将探索导致稻瘟病菌产生的特殊压力细胞发育的生物学原理。具体来说，我们将研究这些细胞中活性氧的释放，我们已经证明了这是疾病发生的必要条件。然后，我们将继续研究真菌感染细胞的生理学，并确定这些细胞如何使用一种称为海藻糖-6-磷酸的酶作为植物感染所必需的饥饿/营养可用性的传感器。总的来说，这个研究项目将提供对当今世界上最重要的作物病害之一的植物感染生物学的深入了解。这将用于为迫切需要的新的疾病控制战略提供信息。除了稻瘟病的全球意义之外，从该项目中获得的知识对英国农业也有潜在的好处，因为类似的真菌影响我们的主要谷类作物，大麦和小麦，并且具有相似的潜在生物学。开发有益于农业生产和消费者的广谱疾病控制策略是本研究的长期战略目标。

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.