(3) Root immunity against Macrophomina phaseolina:

Dubbed as a “global destroyer of crops”, the soil-borne root-pathogenic fungus Macrophomina phaseolina (Mp) infects more than 500 plant species including many economically important cash crops. Host defenses against infection by this pathogen are poorly understood. We established interactions between Mp and Arabidopsis as a new model system to quantitatively assess host factors affecting the outcome of Mp infections. Using agar plate-based infection assays with different Arabidopsis genotypes, we found signaling mechanisms dependent on the plant hormones ethylene, jasmonic acid and salicylic acid to coordinate host defense against this pathogen. Our results established Mp/Arabidopsis interactions as a useful model pathosystem, allowing for the application of the vast genomics-related resources of this versatile model plant to the systematic investigation of previously understudied host defenses against a major crop plant pathogen.

This work has so far been partially funded by the UCR AES Mission Funding Program.

So far we published the following paper related to this project:

- Mercedes M. Schroeder, Yan Lai, Miwa Shirai, Natalie Alsalek, Tokuji Tsuchiya, Philip Roberts & Thomas Eulgem 2019, “A novel Arabidopsis pathosystem reveals cooperation of multiple hormonal response-pathways in host resistance against the global crop destroyer Macrophomina phaseolina” Scientific Reports 9:20083 |

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-56401-2