The roles of pathogen effectors in promoting rust diseases of plants

Rust diseases threaten global food security. This cross-institutional project aims to discover how proteins secreted by rust fungi promote disease following their translocation into plant cells. It will use the interaction between flax and the flax rust fungus as a powerful model system to test the hypothesis that manipulation of host RNA metabolism is a fundamental mechanism underpinning rust pathogenesis. This research is intended to dramatically improve our understanding of the molecular mechanisms used by rust fungi to establish infection. The knowledge gained is expected to facilitate the development of new strategies for rust disease management in food crops by identifying pathogenic processes that can be targeted for intervention.