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Concurrent Session

Session: Concurrent Session: Emerging and re-emerging pathosystems

Wheat Take-all genomics, giant transposable elements (Starships) and sampling the classical Long-Term Experiment Broadbalk

Thursday, July 17, 2025
11:40 - 11:50  
Location: Room M+N

    Presenting Author(s)

  • KH

    Kim E. Hammond-Kosack

    Discovery leader
    Rothamsted Research
    Harpenden, England, United Kingdom

    • Author(s)

  • RH

    Rowena Hill

    Post Doctoral Researcher
    Earlham Institute
    Norwich, England, United Kingdom

  • GC

    Gail Canning

    Senior Scientist
    Rothamsted Research
    Harpenden, England, United Kingdom

  • MG

    Michelle Grey

    Senior Technician
    Earlham Institute
    Norwich, England, United Kingdom

  • DS

    Dan Smith

    Senior Bioinformatician
    John Innes Centre
    Norwich, England, United Kingdom

  • MM

    Mark McMullan

    Group Leader
    Earlham Institute
    Norwich, England, United Kingdom

Abstract Text:

Take-all (TA) is an important wheat root disease. TA is caused by the fungus Gaeumannomyces tritici and is closely related to the rice and wheat blast fungi. We have assembled and annotated genomes for five pathogenic G. tritici, two G. avenae (oat take-all) and two antagonistic G. hyphopodioides using long read sequencing (1).  We have observed significant structural and gene content differences within and among species.  Genomic signatures support the presence of two distinct virulence lineages in G. tritici (types A and B), with the more virulent A strains potentially employing a mechanism to prevent gene copy-number expansions (1).

 

Starship giant transposable elements have been identified across all these species. The “cargo” contains genes that could have originated either from the current host genome, or a previous host genome via HGT.  We investigated the relationship between Starships, both active and degraded, by using a new kmer-based phylogenetic tree building approach (2).

 

In 2024, we sampled different treatments in the Broadbalk wheat experiment started in 1843, including continuous wheat, full AgChemical use, no fungicide use, no herbicide use and different fertiliser regimes. Analysing the genomes of ~100 Broadbalk G tritici isolates will reveal important new information on the A and B virulence lineages as well as Starship movement and “cargo” evolution.