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PLANT CANADA 2019

PS9. Wednesday, July 10, morning session at 10:10 am

Dr. Diane G. O. Saunders

John Innes Centre, Norwich Research Park, UK

The wheat-rust conflict:
Shifty enemies and the long reach of genomics

Abstract: Wheat rusts have been associated with crop failures and famine throughout history. Recent
outbreaks of yellow (stripe) and stem rust in Europe have been linked to expansions in pathogen geographic
distribution, exotic incursions and increased virulence. Our rapid “field pathogenomics” strategy, that uses
transcriptome sequencing of infected wheat leaves taken directly from the field, has enabled us to gain insight
into the population structure of the yellow rust pathogen over successive seasons and track the recent re-
emergence of wheat stem rust in western Europe. Whilst effectively capturing pathogen diversity,
transcriptome sequencing of infected host tissue can also be leveraged to assess the genotype and expression
profiles of the host in its natural environment. Through analysis from the host side of the interaction we also
identified changes in the expression of primary metabolic pathways including photosynthesis through
comparative differential gene expression analysis of wheat varieties with differing levels of susceptibility.
Analysis of independent wheat mutants for several of these genes has shown that they play a key function in
enabling disease progression, with mutants displaying a severe reduction in disease symptoms. Developing and
applying a genomics-driven approach to pathogen surveillance, we have generated valuable new knowledge on
both the pathogen and host sides of the interaction that could be extremely useful for disease management.

Bio:

Dr. Diane Saunders is a Project Leader at the John Innes Centre, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, UK.
Dr.Saunders received her BSc from Exeter University where she continued her PhD in the laboratory of Prof. Nick
Talbot studying the genetic mechanisms that regulate plant pathogen development. After receiving her PhD in
2009, she joined Prof. Sophien Kamoun’s group at The Sainsbury laboratory to continue to study the molecular
mechanisms that underpin plant-pathogen interactions. In 2014, Diane became a computational biology fellow
at the JIC and Earlham Institute, and moved to a Project Leader in 2017. Diane’s research focuses on (re-
)emerging plant pathogens that pose a significant threat to agriculture, and particularly wheat rust pathogens
that are known as the “polio of agriculture”. She uses an array of approaches to improve our understanding of
how plant pathogens cause disease. To gain insight into the population dynamics of the wheat rust pathogens,
Diane pioneered a revolutionary genomics-based pathogen surveillance technique called “field pathogenomics”
to generate high-resolution data directly from infected field samples. This information is essential to help
breeders to develop wheat varieties that are resistant to the wider range of yellow rust isolates that they now
find in the field. https://www.jic.ac.uk/people/diane-saunders/

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