Abstract
The common powdery mildew plant diseases are caused by ascomycete fungi of the order Erysiphales. Their characteristic life style as obligate biotrophs renders functional analyses in these species challenging, mainly because of experimental constraints to genetic manipulation. Global large-scale (“-omics”) approaches are thus particularly valuable and insightful for the characterisation of the life and evolution of powdery mildews. Here we review the knowledge obtained so far from genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic studies in these fungi. We consider current limitations and challenges regarding these surveys and provide an outlook on desired future investigations on the basis of the various –omics technologies.
Highlights
Infections with fungi that cause powdery mildew disease result in a characteristic white fuzzy patina on the surface of aerial plant organs
We review the contribution of large-scale –omics studies over the past 15 years to improve our understanding of the fundamental biology of powdery mildew fungi, their evolution, Powdery Mildew Genomics, Transcriptomics, and Proteomics and the relationship with their hosts
Two sets of ideas influenced the expectation: the average size of genomes from filamentous ascomycetes that had been fully sequenced and assembled was around 40 Mb (e.g., Neurospora crassa and Magnaporthe oryzae; Galagan et al, 2003; Dean et al, 2005); the obligate parasitic life-style of the powdery mildew predicated a reduction in genome size and complexity, in line with the trend toward generalized simplification of body, development and genomes seen in many parasites (Poulin and Randhawa, 2015)
Summary
The common powdery mildew plant diseases are caused by ascomycete fungi of the order Erysiphales. Their characteristic life style as obligate biotrophs renders functional analyses in these species challenging, mainly because of experimental constraints to genetic manipulation. Global large-scale (“-omics”) approaches are valuable and insightful for the characterisation of the life and evolution of powdery mildews. We review the knowledge obtained so far from genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic studies in these fungi. We consider current limitations and challenges regarding these surveys and provide an outlook on desired future investigations on the basis of the various –omics technologies
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