Publications by authors named "Matthew J Moscou"

Article Synopsis
  • The Mla locus in barley includes diverse genes that help the plant resist certain fungal pathogens through specific immune responses.
  • Researchers identified a gene, Scs6, that differs from Mla genes and makes barley susceptible to the necrotrophic fungus Bipolaris sorokiniana.
  • The Scs6 protein interacts with a peptide effector from the fungus to trigger cell death in barley, indicating it plays a role in disease susceptibility, and may lead to advancements in developing crops resistant to these pathogens.
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Goss's wilt and leaf blight of maize is an economically important disease caused by the Gram-positive bacterium, (). Little is known about the ecology and pathogenesis of this bacterium. Here, we used phenotypic assays and a high-throughput whole-genome sequencing approach to explore among-strain variation in virulence and multistrain reproductive success .

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Nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) disease resistance genes typically confer resistance against races of a single pathogen. Here, we report that Yr87/Lr85, an NLR gene from Aegilops sharonensis and Aegilops longissima, confers resistance against both P. striiformis tritici (Pst) and Puccinia triticina (Pt) that cause stripe and leaf rust, respectively.

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Plant nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLRs) immune receptors directly or indirectly recognize pathogen-secreted effector molecules to initiate plant defense. Recognition of multiple pathogens by a single NLR is rare and usually occurs via monitoring for changes to host proteins; few characterized NLRs have been shown to recognize multiple effectors. The barley (Hordeum vulgare) NLR gene Mildew locus a (Mla) has undergone functional diversification, and the proteins encoded by different Mla alleles recognize host-adapted isolates of barley powdery mildew (Blumeria graminis f.

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In the evolution of land plants, the plant immune system has experienced expansion in immune receptor and signaling pathways. Lineage-specific expansions have been observed in diverse gene families that are potentially involved in immunity but lack causal association. Here, we show that -mediated resistance in barley to the pathogen f.

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Leaf rust, caused by Puccinia hordei, is an economically significant disease of barley, but only a few major resistance genes to P. hordei (Rph) have been cloned. In this study, gene Rph3 was isolated by positional cloning and confirmed by mutational analysis and transgenic complementation.

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The wild relatives and progenitors of wheat have been widely used as sources of disease resistance (R) genes. Molecular identification and characterization of these R genes facilitates their manipulation and tracking in breeding programmes. Here, we develop a reference-quality genome assembly of the wild diploid wheat relative Aegilops sharonensis and use positional mapping, mutagenesis, RNA-Seq and transgenesis to identify the stem rust resistance gene Sr62, which has also been transferred to common wheat.

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Disease lesion mimic (DLM) or necrotic mutants display necrotic lesions in the absence of pathogen infections. They can show improved resistance to some pathogens and their molecular dissection can contribute to revealing components of plant defense pathways. Although forward-genetics strategies to find genes causal to mutant phenotypes are available in crops, these strategies require the production of experimental cross populations, mutagenesis, or gene editing and are time- and resource-consuming or may have to deal with regulated plant materials.

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Crop losses caused by plant pathogens are a primary threat to stable food production. Stripe rust (Puccinia striiformis) is a fungal pathogen of cereal crops that causes significant, persistent yield loss. Stripe rust exhibits host species specificity, with lineages that have adapted to infect wheat and barley.

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A subset of plant NLR immune receptors carry unconventional integrated domains in addition to their canonical domain architecture. One example is rice Pik-1 that comprises an integrated heavy metal-associated (HMA) domain. Here, we reconstructed the evolutionary history of Pik-1 and its NLR partner, Pik-2, and tested hypotheses about adaptive evolution of the HMA domain.

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Sequence assembly of large and repeat-rich plant genomes has been challenging, requiring substantial computational resources and often several complementary sequence assembly and genome mapping approaches. The recent development of fast and accurate long-read sequencing by circular consensus sequencing (CCS) on the PacBio platform may greatly increase the scope of plant pan-genome projects. Here, we compare current long-read sequencing platforms regarding their ability to rapidly generate contiguous sequence assemblies in pan-genome studies of barley (Hordeum vulgare).

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This article is part of the Top 10 Unanswered Questions in MPMI invited review series.Nonhost resistance is typically considered the ability of a plant species to repel all attempts of a pathogen species to colonize it and reproduce on it. Based on this common definition, nonhost resistance is presumed to be very durable and, thus, of great interest for its potential use in agriculture.

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The locus in the heirloom rice variety Carolina Gold Select confers resistance to bacterial leaf streak and bacterial blight, caused by pv. and pv. , respectively.

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The fungus () causes tan spot, a destructive foliar disease of wheat worldwide. The pathogen produces several necrotrophic effectors, which induce necrosis or chlorosis on susceptible wheat lines. Multiple races of have been identified, based on their ability to produce one or more of these effectors.

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Stem rust is an important disease of wheat that can be controlled using resistance genes. The gene SuSr-D1 identified in cultivar 'Canthatch' suppresses stem rust resistance. SuSr-D1 mutants are resistant to several races of stem rust that are virulent on wild-type plants.

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Long-read sequencing facilitates assembly of complex genomic regions. In plants, loci containing nucleotide-binding, leucine-rich repeat (NLR) disease resistance genes are an important example of such regions. NLR genes constitute one of the largest gene families in plants and are often clustered, evolving via duplication, contraction, and transposition.

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'Speed breeding' (SB) shortens the breeding cycle and accelerates crop research through rapid generation advancement. SB can be carried out in numerous ways, one of which involves extending the duration of plants' daily exposure to light, combined with early seed harvest, to cycle quickly from seed to seed, thereby reducing the generation times for some long-day (LD) or day-neutral crops. In this protocol, we present glasshouse and growth chamber-based SB approaches with supporting data from experimentation with several crops.

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Phytopathogens have a limited range of host plant species that they can successfully parasitise ie. that they are adapted for. Infection of plants by nonadapted pathogens often results in an active resistance response that is relatively poorly characterised because phenotypic variation in this response often does not exist within a plant species, or is too subtle for genetic dissection.

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Multilayered defense responses ensure that plants are hosts to only a few adapted pathogens in the environment. The host range of a plant pathogen depends on its ability to fully overcome plant defense barriers, with failure at any single step sufficient to prevent life cycle completion of the pathogen. Puccinia striiformis, the causal agent of stripe rust (=yellow rust), is an agronomically important obligate biotrophic fungal pathogen of wheat and barley.

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Article Synopsis
  • Two new wheat stem rust resistance genes (Sr-1644-1Sh and Sr-1644-5Sh) were discovered in Aegilops sharonensis, showing effectiveness against virulent African races of the pathogen.
  • The study focused on identifying these novel genes through traditional mapping and a genome-wide association study (GWAS) using resistant and susceptible populations of the wild goatgrass.
  • Sr-1644-1Sh provides strong resistance to the TTKSK race of stem rust, while Sr-1644-5Sh offers resistance to the TRTTF race, though its detection in GWAS was limited by factors like population structure and marker density.
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The genetic substitution of transformation amenability alleles from 'Golden Promise' can facilitate the development of transformation-efficient lines from recalcitrant barley cultivars. Barley (Hordeum vulgare) cv. 'Golden Promise' is one of the most useful and well-studied cultivars for genetic manipulation.

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The domestication of plants is underscored by the selection of agriculturally favorable developmental traits, including flowering time, which resulted in the creation of varieties with altered growth habits. Research into the pathways underlying these growth habits in cereals has highlighted the role of three main flowering regulators: VERNALIZATION1 (VRN1), VRN2, and FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT). Previous reverse genetic studies suggested that the roles of VRN1 and FT are conserved in Brachypodium distachyon yet identified considerable ambiguity surrounding the role of VRN2 To investigate the natural diversity governing flowering time pathways in a nondomesticated grass, the reference B.

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