Fusarium ear blight (FEB), is a fungal disease of cereals, including wheat, barley, oats, rye and triticale. FEB is caused by a range of Fusarium fungi, which infects the heads of the crop, reducing grain yield. The disease is often associated with contamination by mycotoxins produced by the fungi already when the crop is growing in the field. The disease can cause severe economic losses as mycotoxin-contaminated grain cannot be sold for food or feed.
Beauvericin is a depsipeptide with antibiotic and insecticidal effects belonging to the enniatin family. It was isolated from the fungus Beauveria bassiana, but is also produced by several other fungi, including several Fusarium species; it may therefore occur in grain contaminated with these fungi. Beauvericin is active against Gram-positive bacteria and mycobacteria, and is also capable of inducing programmed cell death in mammals.
Agropyron cristatum, the crested wheat grass, crested wheatgrass, fairway crested wheat grass, is a species in the family Poaceae. This plant is often used as forage and erosion control. It is well known as a widespread introduced species on the prairies of the United States and Canada.
Pyrenophora tritici-repentis (teleomorph) and Drechslera tritici-repentis (anamorph) is a necrotrophic plant pathogen of fungal origin, phylum Ascomycota. The pathogen causes a disease originally named yellow spot but now commonly called tan spot, yellow leaf spot, yellow leaf blotch or helminthosporiosis. At least eight races of the pathogen are known to occur based on their virulence on a wheat differential set.
Gibberella zeae, also known by the name of its anamorph Fusarium graminearum, is a fungal plant pathogen which causes fusarium head blight (FHB), a devastating disease on wheat and barley. The pathogen is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year. Infection causes shifts in the amino acid composition of wheat, resulting in shriveled kernels and contaminating the remaining grain with mycotoxins, mainly deoxynivalenol (DON), which inhibits protein biosynthesis; and zearalenone, an estrogenic mycotoxin. These toxins cause vomiting, liver damage, and reproductive defects in livestock, and are harmful to humans through contaminated food. Despite great efforts to find resistance genes against F. graminearum, no completely resistant variety is currently available. Research on the biology of F. graminearum is directed towards gaining insight into more details about the infection process and reveal weak spots in the life cycle of this pathogen to develop fungicides that can protect wheat from scab infection.
Puccinia striiformis is a fungal species and plant pathogen. It causes stripe rust on wheat, but has other hosts as well. The species is common in Europe and in more recent years has become a problem in Australia. Crop infections can cause losses of up to 40%, and the fungus will infect both winter wheat and spring wheat.
Pseudopestalotiopsis theae is a plant pathogen affecting tea.
Fusarium incarnatum is a fungal pathogen in the genus Fusarium, family Nectriaceae. It is usually associated with over 40 phylogenetic species in the natural environment to form the Fusarium incarnatum-equiseti species complex (FIESC). This complex is widespread across the globe in subtropical and temperate regions, resulting in many reported cases of crop diseases. It produces various mycotoxins including trichothecenes zearalenone, causing both plant and animal diseases.
Growth factor, augmenter of liver regeneration , also known as GFER, or Hepatopoietin is a protein which in humans is encoded by the GFER gene. This gene is also known as essential for respiration and vegatative growth, augmenter of liver regeneration, and growth factor of Erv1-like/Hepatic regenerative stimulation substance.
Thinopyrum intermedium, known commonly as intermediate wheatgrass, is a sod-forming perennial grass in the Triticeae tribe of Pooideae native to Europe and Western Asia. It is part of a group of plants commonly called wheatgrasses because of the similarity of their seed heads or ears to common wheat. However, wheatgrasses generally are perennial, while wheat is an annual. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit as an ornamental.
Leymus racemosus is a species of perennial wild rye known by the common name mammoth wild rye. It is native to southeastern and eastern Europe, Middle Asia, Caucasus, Siberia, China, Mongolia, New Zealand, and parts of North America. Culms are 50–100 cm long, and 10–12 mm in diameter.
Pestalotiopsis is a genus of ascomycete fungi in the Sporocadaceae family.
Leymus mollis is a species of grass known by the common names American dune grass, American dune wild-rye, sea lyme-grass, strand-wheat, and strand grass. Its Japanese name is hamaninniku. It is native to Asia, where it occurs in Japan, China, Korea, and Russia, and northern parts of North America, where it occurs across Canada and the northern United States, as well as Greenland. It can also be found in Iceland.
Phillyrin is an endophytic fungal isolate with anti-obesity activity. It can be produced by Colletotrichum gloeosporioides, an endophytic fungus isolated from Forsythia suspensa. It can also be prepared directly from Forsythia suspensa.
Triticum urartu, also known as red wild einkorn wheat, and a form of einkorn wheat, is a grass species related to wheat, and native to western Asia. It is a diploid species whose genome is the A genome of the allopolyploid hexaploid bread wheat Triticum aestivum, which has genomes AABBDD.
Sushi domain containing 2 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the SUSD2 gene.
Non-invasive micro-test technology (NMT) is a scientific research technology used for measuring physiological events of intact biological samples. NMT is used for research in many biological areas such as gene function, plant physiology, biomedical research, and environmental science.
The human identical sequence (HIS) is a sequence of RNA elements, 24-27 nucleotides in length, that coronavirus genomes share with the human genome. In pathogenic progression, HIS acts as a NamiRNA (nuclear activating miRNA) through the NamiRNA-enhancer network to activate neighboring host genes. The first HIS elements was identified in the SARS-CoV-2 genome, which has five HIS elements; other human coronaviruses have one to five. It has been suggested that these sequences can be more generally termed "host identical sequences" since similar correlations have been found between the genome of SARS-CoV-2 and multiple potential hosts (bats, pangolins, ferrets, and cats).
Awais Khan is a Pakistani-American plant geneticist and an associate professor at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University.
