Genome evolution of a pandemic lineage of the wheat blast pathogen

稻瘟病真菌是谷物稻瘟病的致病因子，是世界农业最具破坏性的植物病原体之一，对水稻、小麦和其他谷类作物的生产构成主要威胁。小麦稻瘟病最早于1985年在巴西被发现，现在在整个南美洲都有发现。2016年2月，南亚国家孟加拉国首次报道了小麦稻瘟病，造成高达90%的产量损失，并已成为该地区粮食安全的主要威胁。孟加拉国的种群似乎起源于从南美引进的真菌的单克隆谱系，并且该谱系已经遍布全国。该项目将根据2016年以来收集的田间分离株确定孟加拉国小麦瘟病菌无性系的遗传变异，并将该种群的遗传组成与其南美祖先进行比较。然后，该项目将发展和实验挑战关于观察到的自然变异对病原体毒性潜力的影响的假设，并将把基因组序列的计算分析与机械后续实验结合起来。

The fungus Magnaporthe (Syn. Pyricularia) oryzae - the causal agent of blast disease of cereals - is among the most destructive plant pathogens to world agriculture and a major threat to the production of rice, wheat, and other cereal crops. Wheat blast was first identified in Brazil in 1985 and is now established throughout South America. In February 2016, wheat blast was first reported in the South Asian country of Bangladesh, where it caused yield losses of up to 90% and has since established itself as a major threat to food security in the region.The Bangladesh population appears to originate from the introduction of a single clonal lineage of the fungus from South America, and this lineage has since spread throughout the country. This project will determine the genetic variation of the Bangladesh clonal lineage of the wheat blast fungus based on field isolates collected since 2016 and will compare the genetic makeup of this population to its South American progenitors. The project will then develop and experimentally challenge hypotheses about the impact of the observed natural variation on the virulence potential of the pathogen and will combine computational analyses of genome sequences with mechanistic follow-up experiments.