ERC Consolidator Grant · 2017
De- and reconstructing virulence strategies of fungal plant pathogens
Fungal pathogens are enormous threats to plants, causing tremendous losses in worldwide crop production. Mechanistic understanding of fungal virulence is crucial to developing novel plant protection strategies in sustainable agriculture. Biotrophic pathogens colonize living plant tissue and reprogram their hosts to stimulate proliferation and development of infection structures. To promote infection, fungal pathogens secrete sets of virulence proteins termed “effectors” in a spatiotemporal program. Many economically relevant biotrophs like rusts and powdery mildew fungi are obligate pathogens. These organisms cannot be grown in culture and are not amenable to reverse genetics, which is a…
From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.