Project description:Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) is a disease of wheat and other cereal crops, where Fusarium graminearum and related species infects the wheat inflorescence during and post-anthesis. The fungus produces trichothecene toxins that accumulate in the grain of infected head, and are required for disease spread. Microarrays were used to observe differential gene expression in the uninoculated spikelets of FHB-challenged wheat spikes in three wheat genotypes. A summary of our findings will be published in Plant Pathology.
Project description:A deterministic model built in COPASI simulating the toxic activity of the K28 toxin produced by Saccharomyces cerevisiae. It simulates the kinetics of inoculating a susceptible population of cells with the toxin and can be used to display the toxin acting via its primary mechanistic pathway at high concentrations or the secondary action pathway, via induced apoptosis, seen at low concentrations.
Project description:Soil fungi are key players in biomass recycling. Predation influences fungal communities and modulates ecosystem services provided by fungi. Fungal chemical defense against predation comprises toxic proteins and secondary metabolites. The intent of this experiment was to generate transcriptomic information when a fungus, in this case Fusarium graminearum, was in the presence of a predator (Folsomia candida). We assumed that defense metabolites are synthesized on demand and transcriptome analysis can be used to pinpoint genes of defense pathways. To carry out the experiment, cultures of F. graminearum were subjected to grazing by springtail F. candida. After 48 hours at 15°C in dark, springtails were removed, and RNA was extracted from mycelium. Controls were incubated under the same conditions without animals. Each group consisted of four replicates. Strand-specific cDNA libraries were prepared using Illumina’s TruSeq stranded mRNA kit (75 bp paired-end) and sequenced on Illumina NextSeq 500V2.
