Research Projects

Fungal pathogens significantly impact agricultural productivity and human health, causing food losses of around 10% of annual crop production. Climate change and increased international trade and transport of plants and products further exacerbate this problem. Vascular wilt fungi, such as Fusarium oxysporum, attack hundreds of crops worldwide and are inaccessible to fungicides. Tropical Race 4 (TR4), an aggressive strain of this fungus, is threatening banana plantations worldwide, including India, by adapting to widely grown Cavendish Bananas. The Fusarium-Banana interaction provides an excellent model to investigate this, as it is currently unknown how the fungus deals with the stem and pseudostem/rhizome in monocots. This project aims to identify the early compatibility genes that F. oxysporum uses to colonize a monocot (Banana) with a pseudostem with a distinct vascular tissue architecture and plant cell wall composition. The project will use a multifacetted approach, combining discovery proteomics and transcriptomics with dual RNA-Seq to identify compatibility gene networks in pathogen and host. This will lead to the identification and characterization of potential targets in this interaction, which could be used to develop novel resistance strategies in ongoing banana breeding efforts. This project will advance fundamental knowledge of how fungi colonize a broad host range and deliver the set of genes that drive F. oxysporum establishment in bananas, while creating new opportunities for crop protection.