Genomics And Effectomics Of Filamentous Plant Pathogens

This book describes how genomics has revolutionized our understanding of agriculturally important plant-associated fungi and oomycetes. It illustrates some fundamental discoveries about these eukaryotic microbes with regard to the overall structure of their genomes, their lifestyles and the molecular mechanisms that form the basis of their interactions with plants. Genomics has provided new insights into fungal lifestyles and led to practical advances in plant breeding and crop protection, such as predictions about the spread and evolution of new pathogens. This volume focuses on fungi and oomycetes that are typical dicot plant pathogens and includes: Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, Botrytis cinerea, Alternaria sp.,Verticillium alfalfae and Verticillium dahliae, Fusarium oxysporum, Phytophthora capsici, Phytophthora sojae, Phytophthora ramorum, Phytophthora infestans, Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis.

Phytopathogenic bacteria of the Xanthomonas genus cause severe diseases on hundreds of host plants, including economically important crops, such as bean, cabbage, cassava, citrus, hemp, pepper, rice, sugarcane, tomato or wheat. Diseases occurring in nature comprise bacterial blight, canker, necrosis, rot, scald, spot, streak or wilt. Xanthomonas spp. are distributed worldwide and pathogenic and nonpathogenic strains are essentially found in association to plants. Some phytopathogenic strains are emergent or re-emergent and, consequently, dramatically impact agriculture, economy and food safety. During the last decades, massive efforts were undertaken to decipher Xanthomonas biology. So far, more than one hundred complete or draft genomes from diverse Xanthomonas species have been sequenced (http://www.xanthomonas.org), thus providing powerful tools to study genetic determinants triggering pathogenicity and adaptation to plant habitats. Xanthomonas spp. employ an arsenal of virulence factors to invade its host, including extracellular polysaccharides, plant cell wall-degrading enzymes, adhesins and secreted effectors. In most xanthomonads, type III secretion (T3S) system and secreted effectors (T3Es) are essential to bacterial pathogenicity through the inhibition of plant immunity or the induction of plant susceptibility (S) genes, as reported for Transcription Activation-Like (TAL) effectors. Yet, toxins can also be major virulence determinants in some xanthomonads while nonpathogenic Xanthomonas species do live in sympatry with plant without any T3S systems nor T3Es. In a context of ever increasing international commercial exchanges and modifications of the climate, monitoring and regulating pathogens spread is of crucial importance for food security. A deep knowledge of the genomic diversity of Xanthomonas spp. is required for scientists to properly identify strains, to help preventing future disease outbreaks and to achieve knowledge-informed sustainable disease resistance in crops. This Research Topic published in the ‘Plant Biotic Interactions’ section of Frontiers in Plant Science and Frontiers in Microbiology aims at illustrating several of the recent achievements of the Xanthomonas community. We collected twelve manuscripts dealing with comparative genomics or T3E repertoires, including five focusing on TAL effectors which we hope will contribute to advance research on plant pathogenic bacteria.

While most textbooks on bioinformatics focus on genetic algorithms and treat protein structure prediction only superficially, this course book assumes a novel and unique focus. Adopting a didactic approach, the author explains all the current methods in terms of their reliability, limitations and user-friendliness. She provides practical examples to help first-time users become familiar with the possibilities and pitfalls of computer-based structure prediction, making this a must-have for students and researchers.

"This outstanding book is an essential tool in helping the scientific community to identify smut fungi everywhere. It includes keys to the genera and species and a host plant-smut fungus list and compiles more than 3,500 micrographs and line drawings into a single sourcebook.This nearly 1,500-page treatise is authored by the worldwide authority on the subject, Dr. Kálmán Vánky, who has spent more than 50 years collecting and describing smut fungi species. The book provides complete and detailed presentations of species in 93 genera through descriptions and illustrations. The book updates our knowledge of valid scientific names and synonyms and provides taxonomic references and the host plant range of each species. Dr. Vánky's passion for the topic shines through on every page through the excellent illustrations and detailed descriptions which complement each other to make identification easier. Having all content in a single volume allows the reader to flip back and forth between similar looking fungi for detailed comparison and analysis"--Pub. desc.

Transgenic Technology Based Value Addition in Plant Biotechnology discusses the principles, methodology and applications of transgenic technologies. With step-by-step methods on genome editing techniques and a range of potential applications, from improving crop yield to increasing therapeutic efficacy, this book is a one-stop reference for plant gene editing technologies. It will be of particular interest to researchers interested in plant biotechnology and plant genetics, as well as agricultural scientists and those concerned with medicinal plants. Includes step-by-step methods to assist students and researchers with genome editing and bioinformatics tools Highlights a number of applications of plant biotechnology, including how to achieve desired traits, such as improved crop yield Discusses principles, methodology and applications of transgenic technologies

This title develops from the 24th Stadler symposium. It explores the general theme "GENOME EXPLOITATION: Data Mining the Genomes". The idea behind the theme is to discuss and illustrate how scientists are going to characterize and make use of the massive amount of information being accumulated about plant and animal genomes. The book presents a state-of-the-art picture on mining the Genome databases. Its chapters are authored by key stars in the field.