Poster # 505
Fiona Doohan, Farhana Afroze, Harriet Benbow, Sai Sushma Boggarapu, Minely Ceron Bustamante, Alessia Confortini, Alexandre Perochon, Ravichandran Kanipriya, Subramani Natarajan
1. School of Biology and Environmental Science, UCD Earth Institute, UCD Institute of Food and Health, UCD Centre for Plant Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
Corresponding author: Fiona Doohan; email: Fiona.doohan@ucd.ie
Doohan, Fiona
Our research is focused on understanding cereal-Fusarium-microbiome interactions in order to enhance control of Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) disease. We work on FHB disease of wheat and oats. At a fundamental level, we work to better understand how the mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON) affects wheat and through such studies we have revealed that DON plays a role in the very early stages of the plant-pathogen interactions and its effects are dose-dependent (beyond what is known regards its role in disease spread). We characterised novel gene pathways associated with FHB resistance in wheat. For example, our studies of a novel wheat gene led to the identification of several genes that can improve FHB resistance. Our studies of the wheat genome identified genomic hotspots associated with FHB resistance, i.e. regions enriched in genes responsive to FHB disease and hence potential disease resistance genes. We developed a pipeline to identify 44 FHB-associated disease responsive gene clusters, including one with antimicrobial activity and another co-located with a FHB resistance genetic locus. Ongoing work is assessing the relationship between wheat, F. graminearum and the wheat head microbiome. Based on our completed oat x FHB x microbiome studies, we know that specific microbial assemblages are associated with low levels of T2/HT-2 toxin production by Fusarium langsethiae. Thus, we question whether the same thing occurs in the wheat x FHB x microbiome interactions. Using diverse wheat genotypes from the Watkins collection, the goal is to determine if (a) there are microbial cohorts associated with FHB resistance, and (b) if there are wheat genetic loci that support the establishment of these microbes in wheat heads. Additionally, we are assessing the relationship between FHB, wheat genotype and the environment using multi-locational field trials. Acknowledgments: This research was supported by the Research Ireland project ‘WheatHeath’ (project No. 22/FFP-A/10284), Science Foundation Ireland project No. 14/1A/2508, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) and The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) project ‘Mycotox-I’ (project No. 2021R460), the EU Wales-Ireland Programme 2014-2020 project “HealthyOats’ (part funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Ireland Wales Cooperation Programmme 2014-2020, project number 82128), the Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund project ‘E-Crop’ (project number DT20200139) and the European Union Interreg North Periphery and Artic Propgramme Project ‘OatFrontiers’ (financed through European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and ERDF equivalent funding from the Non-EU partner countries, project number NPA0500123).
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