Wheat side story: Characterizing host responses to yellow rust 
P. CORREDOR MORENO (1), D. Saunders (2) (1) The Genome Analysis Centre, United Kingdom; (2) The Genome Analysis Centre / The John Innes Centre, United Kingdom

Yellow rust (YR) disease, caused by the fungus Puccinia striiformis, is a major threat to wheat and triticale production worldwide and can lead to total crop loss when left untreated. Due to the devastating effect of this disease, it is crucial to understand how the host modulates gene expression during infection in order to identify the molecular mechanisms that regulate the disease response. The dynamic changes in the host gene expression during infection can be detected by transcriptome sequencing. Over the last 3 years, a “field pathogenomics” approach has been applied to over 500 field samples of YR-infected plants from different locations. The gene sequence data generated from this approach has helped us to study the re-emergence of YR in Europe as a threat to agriculture, whilst providing a reliable platform to investigate the evolution and spread of the pathogen on a global scale. I aim to use the transcriptome data available to identify changes in the host gene expression in order to decipher how different cultivars of the same plant species respond to the disease. Our results show unique expression profiles for different wheat varieties. These unique patterns are being further characterized to identify potential candidate genes involved in the response to YR. We hope that understanding changes at the transcriptomic level in closely related hosts will provide new insight into the host-rust interaction.     

Abstract Number: P12-395
Session Type: Poster