Research Projects

In India, Blast disease caused by multihost pathogen, Magnaporthe species in rice and millets (pearl millet, finger millet, minor millets) are greatest important and cause severe yield loss. During pathogenesis, the secreted effectors interact with specific host proteins to repress them when they function in plant defense or activate them when they function as negative regulators of plant immunity or as susceptibility factors. Some of the virulence/pathogenicity genes were reported from previous studies in Magnaporthe oryzae infecting rice and other host pathogen systems. However, so far no studies were conducted regarding studying the virulence factors of pearl millet blast pathogen (Magnaporthe grisea) and identification of host targets in pearl millet. In our preliminary study, we identified potential candidate virulence genes in M. grisea viz., CHROMO (CHRromatin Organization Modifier) like domain family (Gene id: Mg.00g016130.m01 (BAF9913.1)) and Peroximal signal 2 targeting receptor (Gene id: Mg.00g031250.m01 (XP_029750651.1) plays a key role in modulating the blast susceptibility in pearl millet hosts (Bansal et al., 2023). With this background, the current project is proposed to understand the genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying the novel pathogen virulence/pathogenicity factors is essential for the identification of new molecular targets in the host system. This project will give better understanding on the novel virulence factors and also helps to identify host proteins plays role in disease establishment. These results will help us to develop blast resistance cultivars by genetic manipulation of identified host targets.