Population Biology of the Anther Smut Fungus, Ustilago violacea: Genetic Processes Revealed by Molecular Markers

花药黑粉菌真菌紫黑粉菌的群体生物学：分子标记揭示的遗传过程

• 批准号: 9119409
• 负责人: Helen Alexander
• 金额: $ 19.62万
• 依托单位: University of Kansas Main Campus
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1992
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1992-04-15 至 1995-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9119409&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Population; Biology; Anther; Smut; Fungus

Micro-organisms such as bacteria and fungi are the cause of many diseases of plants and animals. The implement successful disease control, one needs to understand the population biology of the infectious organisms. Knowledge of the extent and patterns of genetic variation in the pathogen population is particularly significant since disease control practices may not be equally effective against all genetic forms of the pathogen. However, studies of the population genetics and ecology of micro-organisms under natural conditions are often lacking simply because the organisms are small, have little morphological variation, and individual organisms are hard to distinguish. Studies will be undertaken on the population biology of a naturally occurring fungus which infects plants in the Pink family. Past studies of the plant revealed that host populations can be genetically variable in their resistance to the anther- smut disease. To investigate the extent of fungal genetic variation, a new-molecular technique called RAPD (Random Amplification of Polymorphic DNA) which can detect genetic differences among individuals will be used. This will allow determination of the biology of the fungus, such as the degree to which host plants are multiply infected and whether different strains of the fungus are more successful at infection than others. This technique will also be used characterize patterns of genetic variation among fungal populations, for instance the degree to which spatially separated populations are genetically distinct. The anther-smut disease is a model system to study evolutionary and ecological interactions between hosts and pathogens. In particular, this research will evaluate the usefulness of the RAPD technique for investigating aspects of pathogen population biology that have been previously ignored because of the lack of a method for distinguishing fungal individuals. RAPD techniques have numerous potential applications in applied studies of host/pathogen interactions. For instance, it will be important to track the spatial dispersal of micro-organisms to evaluate the spread of human-designed organisms (such as biocontrol agents) in the environment. The RAPD technique has considerable promise in this regard because of the high resolution it offers in distinguishing organisms. Further, since our model system makes use of naturally occurring genetic variation, there are no problems in our study of introducing unknown new genetic variants into the environment.

微生物（例如细菌和真菌）是许多动植物疾病的原因。 实施成功的疾病控制，需要了解传染性生物的种群生物学。 关于病原体种群遗传变异的程度和模式的知识尤其重要，因为疾病控制实践对病原体的所有遗传形式可能没有同样有效。 但是，在自然条件下对微生物的种群遗传学和生态学的研究通常缺乏仅仅是因为生物很小，形态学变化很小，并且很难区分单个生物。 将对一种自然存在的真菌的种群生物学进行研究，该真菌感染了粉红色家族中的植物。 过去对植物的研究表明，宿主种群在对花药疾病的抗性中可能是遗传上的。 为了研究真菌遗传变异的程度，将使用一种称为RAPD的新分子技术（多态DNA的随机扩增），将使用该技术可以检测到个体之间的遗传差异。 这将允许确定真菌的生物学，例如宿主植物被多重感染的程度，以及不同的真菌菌株是否比其他菌株更成功。 该技术还将被用来表征真菌种群中遗传变异模式的特征，例如，空间分离的种群在遗传上与众不同的程度。 花药疾病是研究宿主和病原体之间进化和生态相互作用的模型系统。 特别是，这项研究将评估RAPD技术对研究病原体生物学方面的有用性，这些方面因缺乏区分真菌个体的方法而被忽略了。 RAPD技术在宿主/病原体相互作用的应用研究中具有许多潜在的应用。 例如，跟踪微生物的空间分散，以评估人类设计的生物（例如生物防治剂）在环境中的传播。 RAPD技术在这方面具有相当大的希望，因为它在区分生物方面提供了高分辨率。 此外，由于我们的模型系统利用了自然发生的遗传变异，因此在我们的研究中没有问题将未知的新遗传变异引入环境。