Fungal pathogens derive nutrition from the plants they invade. Some fungi can subvert plant defence responses such as programmed cell death to provide nutrition for their growth and colonisation. Secondary metabolite toxins produced by fungi often play a role in triggering these responses. Knowledge of the biosynthesis of these toxins, and the availability of fungal genome sequences and gene di...

Hypovirulence in fungal plant pathogens refers to the reduced ability of selected isolates within a population of a pathogen to infect, colonize, kill, and (or) reproduce on susceptible host tissues and is often associated with fungal viruses and associated double-stranded RNA elements. It has been reported to occur in numerous fungal plant pathogens, including Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, S. mino...

Acetylation of histone lysine residues occurs in different organisms ranging from yeast to plants and mammals for the regulation of diverse cellular processes. With the identification of enzymes that create or reverse this modification, our understanding on histone acetylation has expanded at an amazing pace during the last two decades. In fungal pathogens of plants, however, the importance of ...

Rice blast caused by Magnaporthe oryzae is one of the most destructive fungal diseases of rice and a model for studying fungalplant interactions. The fungus penetrates plant cells with appressoria and develops the narrow primary invasive hyphae (IH) and, subsequently, the bulbous secondary IH. As a hemibiotrophic pathogen, biotrophic IH are enclosed in the extra-invasive-hyphal membrane (EIHM) ...

microbe-associated molecular patterns (mamps) play key roles as activators of the innate immune response in animals and, analogously, as elicitors of defense responses in plants. however, there are not much investigations concerning their real importance in plant resistance against pathogens. here we used derivatives of flagellin and ef-tu as two well-known mamps against some important fungal a...

Fungal pathogens are responsible for approximately two third of the infectious plant diseases. Historically they have been associated with several devastating famines, causing death and disabilities in humans. Mostly fungal diseases are being controlled by using fungicides which otherwise have adverse side effects on the health of consumers as well as environment. Due to extensive usages, patho...

The plant apoplast is integral to intercellular signalling, transport and plant-pathogen interactions. Plant pathogens deliver effectors both into the apoplast and inside host cells, but no computational method currently exists to discriminate between these localizations. We present ApoplastP, the first method for predicting whether an effector or plant protein localizes to the apoplast. Apopla...

Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascades and the calcium-calcineurin pathway control fundamental aspects of fungal growth, development and reproduction. Core elements of these signalling pathways are required for virulence in a wide array of fungal pathogens of plants and mammals. In this review, we have used the available genome databases to explore the structural conservation of three...