麻豆淫院

Researchers from the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have discovered a breakthrough in the fight against Fusarium Head Blight, which is a major disease affecting U.S. wheat and other cereal crops.

Farmers must be diligent for signs of Fusarium Head Blight, a disease of cereal crops that flourishes under wet conditions and high temperatures. Caused by the fungus Fusarium graminearum, the disease inflicts yield losses of more than 1 billion dollars annually in wheat and barley. The disease also produces mycotoxins that can contaminate the crops' grain, limiting its marketability or even rendering it unfit for food or feed uses.

Now, an ARS-led team may have found a way to turn the tables on Fusarium Head Blight, potentially minimizing the threat it poses to consumer health, farmer profits, and a $5.94 billion U.S. wheat export market.

The team's discovery, in Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions, centers around a key molecule that the fungus naturally produces, known as FgTPP1.

"This molecule helps the fungus shut off the plant's defenses or weaken them enough that it can grow in the rest of the plant," explained Matthew Helm, team leader and a research molecular biologist with ARS's Crop Production and Pest Control Research Unit in West Lafayette, IN.

FgTPP1 is one of hundreds of molecules that the fungus produces to help it infect wheat plants and cause Fusarium Head Blight. The fact that other disease-causing species of Fusarium also produce FgTPP1 "suggests it serves an important function," Helm said.

To find out, Helm and his team of researchers used a standard procedure to "delete" the gene for FgTPP1 from the fungus. In the lab, the scientists then infected the wheat heads of a susceptible spring wheat variety with the gene-deleted fungus. They also infected a second group of wheat heads with fungus whose FgTPP1 remained intact. This enabled the researchers to compare the progress of Fusarium Head Blight in wheat heads exposed to the two fungus groups.

As expected, wheat heads exposed to the gene-deleted fungus fared far better than those exposed to the intact fungus鈥攚ith the former causing disease in 18% to 27% of wheat heads versus 50% for the latter.

Helm and his team showed that, during infection, the fungus uses FgTPP1 to deactivate the plant's defensive response, allowing the fungus to grow and cause Fusarium Head Blight.

Now, Helm's team has begun examining which proteins in wheat are important targets for FgTPP1 and whether removing them could slow the fungus's advance to the rest of the plant.

"The trick," Helm noted, "will be to avoid hurting the plant by removing a protein that it also needs."

The outcome of this research will benefit commercially grown wheat to naturally withstand the disease and keep its toxins out of grain destined for consumer and livestock uses. Ultimately, investing in and exploring novel approaches like this "adds another tool in the toolbox that U.S. farmers can use to manage Fusarium Head Blight in wheat and possibly barley," Helm added.