Fusarium interspecies interactions during infection of durum wheat
Citation
Harris, L.J., Bosnich, W., Johnston, A., Kwan, R., Schneiderman, D., Blackwell, B., Bahadoor, A., Gleddie, S. Fusarium interspecies interactions during infection of durum wheat. Invited talk, Session 10, Proceedings of the 9th Conference of the World Mycotoxin Forum, p. 70, Winnipeg, MB, June 6-9, 2016.
Résumé en langage clair
Durum wheat is very susceptible to the disease Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) which leads to mouldy, low quality grain contaminated with mycotoxins. We are studying how two of the fungal pathogens responsible for FHB interact in durum wheat heads to understand how the fungi might compete and the impact on the mycotoxins with which they contaminate cereal grain.
Résumé
Fusarium cereal pathogens are known to produce a diverse array of mycotoxins and other secondary metabolites which may act together to cause plant disease and adverse effects on human and animal health. To study the impact of Fusarium interactions, we chose F. graminearum and F. avenaceum, which are known to co-contaminate Canadian durum wheat samples resulting in the deposition of trichothecenes, enniatins, moniliformin, and other bioactive compounds. Two F. graminearum (one 15-ADON- and one 3-ADON-producer) and two F. avenaceum strains were inoculated individually and in combination in durum wheat spikes in growth chamber studies. Fungal biomass was monitored using species-specific droplet digital PCR assays and transcriptomes were profiled by RNASeq. We observed that co-inoculations of F. graminearum & F. avenaceum led to reduced disease and DON levels compared to single inoculations of F. graminearum, even though F. graminearum greatly out-competed F. avenaceum in fungal biomass. We also conducted transcriptomic profiling of F. graminearum grown in the presence of F. avenaceum culture filtrate in vitro. A F. graminearum ABC transporter gene was strongly induced in planta after Fusarium species co-inoculations and in vitro upon exposure to F. avenaceum culture filtrate or enniatin B1. We are investigating whether this transporter is contributing to the ability of F. graminearum to compete during interspecies interactions.