Abstract
This proposal centres on the mechanistic basis for fungal diseases of forest trees. To do this we focus on the root rot fungus Heterobasidion annosum, a major pathogen of conifer trees, and its interactions with its hosts Norway spruce and Scots pine. The overall aim is to understand the processes that determine the outcome of interactions between the root rot pathogen and conifers with the ultimate goal of finding new ways to control it. Applying both genetic and genomic approaches will ensure identification of interesting genes from both the host plant and the fungal pathogen. (1) In the genetic part we will search for QTLs that are associated with virulence in the pathogen or resistance in the host, (2)The transcriptome of interacting hosts and pathogen will be studied using EST libraries and microarray techniques, (3) Functional characterisation of putative virulence and resistance factors will be done by overexpression or gene silencing experiments (4)The recombinant proteins of candidate genes from both pathogen and host will be purified, and analysed structurally, (5) We will investigate the role of programmed cell death (PCD) in the hypersensitive reaction, (6) Phylogenetic analysis of functionally and evolutionary important pathogen genes will be carried out, and (7) Conduct bioinformatics- maintenance and annotation of EST dataset.
Sweden