Didier Tharreau

Verified

Didier verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

Verified

Didier verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

• PhD
• Senior Researcher at French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development

Rice brown spot caused by Bipolaris oryzae (syn. Cochliobolus miyabeanus) is a re-emerging disease worldwide. Under natural conditions, the disease causes approximately 4% in grain yield losses, ranging from 1% to 34% in countries of Africa and Asia. Rice seeds can be infected from relatively low (0.5%) to high (76%) rates. B. oryzae also infects w...

Blast is a devastating disease of rice caused by the fungus Pyricularia oryzae . The role of infected straw and seed as sources of primary inoculum in blast disease epidemics is well known. The role of alternative hosts is yet to be confirmed. The current study sought to assess if wild rice is a major source of inoculum for cultivated rice by compa...

Blast disease caused by the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae is one of the most devastating rice diseases. Disease resistance genes such as Pi-ta or Pi-ta2 are critical in protecting rice production from blast. Published work reports that Pi-ta codes for a nucleotide-binding and leucine-rich repeat domain protein (NLR) that recognizes the fungal protease-...

The reproductive system of an organism impacts the emergence and evolution of adaptive variants in response to selective constraints. The understanding of the sexual mode of reproduction in pathogens helps to understand their life history. In filamentous Ascomycete fungi, mating type system and the production of gametes are required to reproduce se...

Pyricularia oryzae (syn. Magnaporthe oryzae ), is a filamentous ascomycete that causes a major disease called blast on cereal crops, as well as on a wide variety of wild and cultivated grasses. Blast diseases have a tremendous impact worldwide particularly on rice and on wheat, where the disease emerged in South America in the 1980s, before spreadi...

The rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae differentiates specialized cells called appressoria that are required for fungal penetration into host leaves. In this study, we identified the novel basic leucine zipper (bZIP) transcription factor BIP1 (B-ZIP Involved in Pathogenesis-1) that is essential for pathogenicity. BIP1 is required for the infectio...

Blast is a devastating disease of rice caused by the fungus Pyricularia oryzae. The role of infected straw and seed as sources of primary inoculum in blast disease epidemics is well known. The role of alternative hosts is yet to be confirmed. The current study sought to assess if wild rice is a major source of inoculum for cultivated rice by compar...

Different fungal species of the Pleosporaceae family infect rice, causing similar symptoms. Reference genomic sequences are useful tools to study the evolution of these species and to develop accurate molecular diagnostic tools. Here, we report the complete genome sequences of Bipolaris bicolor , Curvularia hawaiiensis , Curvularia spicifera, and E...

Rice blast is one of the most destructive diseases of rice worldwide, and the causative agent is the filamentous ascomycete Magnaporthe oryzae. With the successful cloning of more and more avirulence genes from M. oryzae, the direct extraction of M. oryzae genomic DNA from infected rice tissue would be useful alternative for rapid monitoring of cha...

Traditional agrosystems, where humans, crops and microbes have coevolved over long periods, can serve as models to understand the eco-evolutionary determinants of disease dynamics and help the engineering of durably resistant agrosystems. Here, we investigated the genetic and phenotypic relationship between rice (Oryza sativa) landraces and their r...

We characterized the genetic structure of 609 strains of Pyricularia oryzae, the fungal pathogen causing rice blast disease, in three main regions in Vietnam using microsatellites (SSR) markers. From the 447 distinct multilocus genotypes identified, six genetic clusters were defined, all of them showing elevated genetic and genotypic diversities. F...

Citation: Zampieri, E.; Volante, A.; Marè, C.; Orasen, G.; Desiderio, F.; Biselli, C.; Canella, M.; Carmagnola, L.; Milazzo, J.; Adreit, H.; et al. Marker-Assisted Pyramiding of Blast-Resistance Genes in a japonica Elite Rice Cultivar through Forward and Background Selection. Plants 2023, 12, 757. https://doi. Abstract: Rice blast, caused by Pyricu...

Traditional agrosystems, where humans, crops and microbes have coevolved over long periods, can serve as models to understand the eco-evolutionary determinants of disease dynamics and help the engineering of durably resistant agrosystems. Here, we investigated the genetic and phenotypic relationship between rice (Oryza sativa) landraces and their r...

Rice blast is one of the most destructive diseases of rice worldwide, and the causative agent is the filamentous ascomycete Magnaporthe oryzae . With the successful cloning of more and more avirulence genes from M. oryzae , the direct extraction of M. oryzae genomic DNA from infected rice tissue would be useful alternative for rapid monitoring of c...

In recent years, Brown spot disease of rice (BSR) has been observed on leaves and seeds of rice in all rice-growing areas of Burkina Faso. Bipolaris oryzae and Exserohilum rostratum are the main fungal species isolated from BSR infected tissues and they are frequently observed in the same field. However, we are lacking information on the genetic di...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1010687.].

Rice genes OsDjA2 and OsERF104, encoding a chaperone protein and an APETELA2/ ethylene-responsive factor, respectively, are strongly induced in a compatible interaction with blast fungus, and also have function in plant susceptibility validated through gene silencing. Here, we reported the CRISPR/Cas9 knockout of OsDjA2 and OsERF104 genes resulting...

Sexual reproduction in Ascomycetes is well described in several model organisms such as Neurospora crassa or Podospora anserina. Deciphering the biological process of sexual reproduction (from the recognition between compatible partners to the formation of zygote) can be a major advantage to better control sexually reproducing pathogenic fungi. In...

Many species of fungal plant pathogens coexist as multiple lineages on the same host, but the factors underlying the origin and maintenance of population structure remain largely unknown. The rice blast fungus Pyricularia oryzae is a widespread model plant pathogen displaying population subdivision. However, most studies of natural variation in P....

Traditional agrosystems, where humans, crops and microbes have coevolved over long periods, can serve as models to understand the eco-evolutionary determinants of disease dynamics and help the engineering of durably resistant agrosystems. Here, we investigated the genetic and phenotypic relationship between rice (Oryza sativa) landraces and their r...

Rice brown spot is an emerging disease of concern in many rice-growing countries. Different fungal species of the genera Bipolaris and Exserohilum were reported as the causal agents of this disease. These fungal pathogens cause similar necrotic lesions on leaves and infect grains with a significant effect on seed germination. In 2018, samples of ri...

Article Ca 2+ sensor-mediated ROS scavenging suppresses rice immunity and is exploited by a fungal effector Graphical abstract Highlights d Rice ROD1 suppresses immunity via catalase activation and ROS scavenging d ROD1 is a Ca 2+-sensor fine-tuned by ubiquitination-mediated protein degradation d Natural ROD1 variants influence indica and japonica...

Rice blast, caused by the filamentous ascomycete Pyricularia oryzae, is one of the most devastating diseases of rice. Four genetic clusters were previously identified, and three have a large geographic distribution. Asia is the center of diversity and the origin of most migrations to other continents, and sexual reproduction persisted only in the S...

Multiple constraints affect rice yields and global production in West Africa. Among these constraints are viral, bacterial and fungal pathogens. We aimed to describe the spatiotemporal patterns of occurrence and incidence of multiple rice diseases in farmers’ fields in contrasting rice growing systems in western Burkina Faso. For this purpose, we s...

Blast disease is a notorious fungal disease leading to dramatic yield losses on major food crops such as rice and wheat. The causal agent, Pyricularia oryzae, encompasses different lineages, each having a different host range. Host shifts are suspected to have occurred in this species from Setaria sp. to rice and from Lolium sp. to wheat. The emerg...

Background: Rice blast, caused by the fungus Pyricularia oryzae, represents the most damaging fungal disease of rice worldwide. Utilization of rice resistant cultivars represents a practical way to control the disease. Most of the rice varieties cultivated in Europe and several other temperate regions are severely depleted of blast resistance gene...

The discovery and deployment of new broad-spectrum resistance (R) genes from cultivated rice and its wild relatives is a strategy to broaden the genetic basis of modern rice cultivars to combat rice blast disease. Oryza glaberrima possessing many valuable traits for tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses, is an elite gene pool for improvement of...

Natural variation in plant pathogens has an impact on food security and ecosystem health. The rice blast fungus Pyricularia oryzae, which limits rice production in all rice-growing areas, is structured into multiple lineages. Diversification and the maintenance of multiple rice blast lineages have been proposed to be due to separation in different...

Background Rice blast, caused by the fungus Pyricularia oryzae , represents the most damaging fungal disease of rice worldwide. Utilization of resistant cultivars represents a practical way to control the disease. Most of the rice varieties cultivated in Europe and several other temperate regions are severely depleted of blast resistance genes, mak...

Background Rice blast, caused by the fungus Pyricularia oryzae , represents the most damaging fungal disease of rice worldwide. Utilization of resistant cultivars represents a practical way to control the disease. Most of the rice varieties cultivated in Europe and several other temperate regions are severely depleted of blast resistance genes, mak...

Wheat blast is a devastating disease caused by the pathogenic fungus Pyricularia oryzae. Wheat blast first emerged in South America before more recently reaching Bangladesh. Even though the pathogen can spread locally by air-dispersed spores, long-distance spread is likely to occur via infected wheat seed or grain. Wheat blast epidemics are caused...

Rapid detection is key to managing emerging diseases because it allows their spread around the world to be monitored and limited. The first major wheat blast epidemics were reported in 1985 in the Brazilian state of Paraná. Following this outbreak, the disease quickly spread to neighboring regions and countries and, in 2016, the first report of whe...

Py ricularia oryzae is rice and wheat blast causal agent and can occur leaf spot on some grass species. Blast disease is one of the most important diseases in rice areas cultivated in Iran, annually it cause economic damage to rice. Sampling was conducted from rice, maize, foxtail millet, and weeds of wheat and rice cultivation regions, citrus orch...

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is a socio-economically important crop in Algeria. From 2013 to 2016, surveys were performed on tomato plants showing symptoms of crown and root rot in North Algeria in Tlemcen, Oran, Mostaganem, Guelma and Sekikda Departments (disease incidence 62%). Fusarium isolates were recovered from surface-disinfected roots a...

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is a socio-economically important crop in Algeria. From 2013 to 2016, surveys were performed on tomato plants showing symptoms of crown and root rot in North Algeria in Tlemcen, Oran, Mostaganem, Guelma and Sekikda Departments (disease incidence 62%). Fusarium isolates were recovered from surface-disinfected roots a...

Contexte : À la suite de la parution dans Phytoma d'un article, en décembre 2018, sur la pyriculariose des gazons, il est apparu nécessaire d'apporter des précisions sur la taxonomie de l'agent pathogène, qui a changé plusieurs fois autours des trente dernières années. Ces ambiguïtés pourraient avoir des conséquences en matière réglementaire et de...

In a review article published in this issue of Molecular Plant Pathology, Ceresini et al. (2019) wrongly treat the wheat blast fungus as a new species, Pyricularia graminis‐tritici (Pygt), following the proposal of Castroagudin et al. (2016). Despite the host specificity implied by the name Pygt, the proposed species concept includes isolates that...

In conclusion, based on the strong evidence, Pygt cannot be considered as a distinct species. Because all strains within Pygt form a subset of the strains in P. oryzae, we formally treat Pygt as a synonym of P. oryzae according to the code of nomenclature of plants, fungi and algae (see below). Resulting from this formal synonymization, P. oryzae,...

In the densely populated highlands of Madagascar, growing upland rice offers the opportunity to increase the total rice cropping area and to improve food security. However, rice blast was a major constraint for the first cultivars released in the 1990s and consequently limited the extension of upland rice. However, blast epidemics are much less int...

The rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae (syn., Pyricularia oryzae) is both a threat to global food security and a model for plant pathology. Molecular pathologists need an accurate understanding of the origins and line of descent of M. oryzae populations in order to identify the genetic and functional bases of pathogen adaptation and to guide the...

Each year Pyricularia oryzae causes blast diseases of rice, wheat, and cereals of local importance (millets) which destroy enough food supply to sustain millions of people (Pennisi 2010). Blast disease is one of the major constraints for the production of foxtail millet (Setaria italica) especially in northern China and India (Nakayama et al. 2005)...

Delineating species and epidemic lineages in fungal plant pathogens is critical to our understanding of disease emergence and the structure of fungal biodiversity and also informs international regulatory decisions. Pyricularia oryzae (syn. Magnaporthe oryzae) is a multihost pathogen that infects multiple grasses and cereals, is responsible for the...

The rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae (syn. Pyricularia oryzae ) is both a threat to global food security and a model for plant pathology. Molecular pathologists need an accurate understanding of the origins and line of descent of M. oryzae populations, to identify the genetic and functional bases of pathogen adaptation, and to guide the develop...

Wild species of the genus Oryza are excellent gene pools for improvement of agronomic traits of Asian cultivated rice. The blast resistance gene Pi57(t) in the introgression line IL-E1454 derived from Oryza longistaminata was previously mapped on rice chromosome 12. Inoculation with 322 Magnaporthe oryzae isolates collected from 6 countries indicat...

Resistance reaction of IL-E1454 and 10 monogenic lines to 322 Magnaporthe oryzae strains. (DOC)

Polymorphic analysis of resistance donor IL-E1454, and susceptible parents RD23 and LTH with STS markers developed in this study. (PDF)

Delineating species and epidemic lineages in fungal plant pathogens is critical to our understanding of disease emergence and the structure of fungal biodiversity, and also informs international regulatory decisions. Pyricularia oryzae (syn. Magnaporthe oryzae) is a multi-host pathogen that infects multiple grasses and cereals, is responsible for t...

Magnaporthe oryzae is the fungal plant pathogen which causes rice blast. The sources of primary inoculum and overwintering mode of the fungus remain largely unknown. The effect of rice residues on the onset of blast epidemics and the potential of survival of M. oryzae in the residues were studied in upland conditions in Madagascar. Blast disease wa...

The structure of pathogen populations is an important driver of epidemics affecting crops and natural plant communities. Comparing the composition of two pathogen populations consisting of assemblages of genotypes or phenotypes is a crucial, recurrent question encountered in many studies in plant disease epidemiology. Determining if there is a sign...

Widespread resistance, localized relief Rice blast fungus can devastate a rice harvest. Genes that provide resistance to the fungus usually depress rice yield. Deng et al. analyzed the molecular underpinnings of a rice variant that is resistant to rice blast but still high-yielding (see the Perspective by Wang and Valent). The key locus encodes sev...

The data relates to Figure 3.The expression values of defense-related genes (columns) normalized by the Actin gene are given. All values were also normalized using the mean of each gene in order to make all genes comparable with each other. In the first columns, the first element represents the treatment (chi=chitin), the second the variety, the th...

The data relates to Figure 3—figure supplement 2.Columns 2-5 represent susceptibility to the corresponding M. oryzae isolate (CD203, CM28, CL26, and GY11). The data are then normalized by the value in the Maratelli (used as universal susceptible control) variety to allow comparisons between isolates.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.19377.016

The data relates to Figure 3—figure supplement 4.The expression of defense-related genes was evaluated by RT-qPCR and the data normalized by the actin gene is given. Each condition was replicated 3–4 times (column C). AC=Acuce, XG=Xiao Gu, HPN=Huang Pi Nuo, NG=Nuo Gu are rice varities. CL26 (A) and CM28 (B) are isolates of Magnaporthe oryzae isolat...

The data relates to Figure 1.For each of the 215 Magnaporthe oryzae isolate, the name of the variety on which it was collected is indicated and the rice subspecies is indicated (indica or japonica). The ‘pyrm’ columns represent microsatellites names from Saleh et al. (2014). Other informations like GPS position, altitude and town where the isolates...

The data relates to Figure 4.The file presents the data of inoculation of the Huang Pi Nuo (HPN) and Nuo Gu (NG) by different isolates of M. oryzae (strains) for each of which the number of AVR-effector is indicated. The first two spreadsheets are surfaces of susceptible lesions with HPN and NG. The last two spreadsheets are the data for calculatin...

The data relates to Figure 4—figure supplement 1.The values represent the number of lesions per unit surface for each of the replicates. The first lane represents the isolate used for inoculating the Nipponbare (Nip) or CEBiP (cebip) mutant.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.19377.027

The data relates to Figure 5.Strains 1 to 3 are independent GY11 transformants with either AVR-Pia transgene or empty vector (EV). Each strain was replicated three times. HPN= Hunag Pi Nuo, NG= Nu Gu, NB= Nipponbare Spreadsheet 5A and 5B are data for surface of susceptible lesions and susceptible lesions over total lesions.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10...

ELife digest Microbes that cause diseases in plants are a threat to food security. For example, the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae causes the loss of enough rice to feed 60 million people each year. Disease-causing microbes must overcome the plant’s first line of defense, which includes preformed barriers and antimicrobial responses that are...

Background Rice blast is one of the most damaging disease of rice. The use of resistant cultivars is the only practical way to control the disease in developing countries where most farmers cannot afford fungicides. However resistance often breaks down. Genome wide association studies (GWAS) allow high resolution exploration of rice genetic diversi...

Background In February 2016, a new fungal disease was spotted in wheat fields across eight districts in Bangladesh. The epidemic spread to an estimated 15,000 hectares, about 16 % of the cultivated wheat area in Bangladesh, with yield losses reaching up to 100 %. Within weeks of the onset of the epidemic, we performed transcriptome sequencing of sy...

Magnaporthe oryzae is a pathogenic fungus of cultivated and wild species of the grass family. It causes rice blast disease. Blast appeared recently on wheat in South America. The enormous losses caused on wheat and the risk of spreading in North America, Europe and Asia makes wheat blast a major threat. There is host specificity within the species...

p>Resistance Spectrum of Double Haploid Lines Derived from IR64 and Wild Rice Species, Oryza rufipogon Contained the Blast Resistance QTL (Pir). Dwinita W. Utami, A. Dinar Ambarwati, Aniversari Apriana, Atmitri Sisharmini, Ida Hanarida, Didier Tharreau, and Santosa. This study was initiated to determine the spectrum resistance of the candidate dura...

The order Magnaporthales comprises about 200 species and includes the economically and scientifically important rice blast fungus and the take-all pathogen of cereals, as well as saprotrophs and endophytes. Recent advances in phylogenetic analyses of these fungi resulted in taxonomic revisions. In this paper we list the 28 currently accepted genera...

Efficient strategies for limiting the impact of pathogens on crops require a good understanding of the factors underlying the evolution of compatibility range for the pathogens and host plants, i.e. the set of host genotypes that a particular pathogen genotype can infect and the set of pathogen genotypes that can infect a particular host genotype....

Deciphering the genetic bases of pathogen adaptation to its host is a key question in ecology and evolution. To understand how the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae adapts to different plants, we sequenced eight M. oryzae isolates differing in host specificity (rice, foxtail millet, wheat, and goosegrass), and one Magnaporthe grisea isolate specific of cra...

Knowledge of the avirulence (Avr) genes present in plant pathogens facilitates the identification of the required resistance (R) gene to be incorporated in host plants to overcome pathogen infection. The plus/minus Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) assay was conducted to determine the presence of the virulent and avirulent ACE1 genotypes of the rice...

Oryza longistaminata with strong resistance to biotic and abiotic stress was regarded as an excellent gene pool for Asian cultivated rice improvement. Thus, mining and utilization of favorable genes/alleles from O. longistaminata would be important in breeding for Oryza sativa by broadening its genetic basis. To explore blast resistance genes from...

The ACE1 and RAP1 genes from the avirulence signalling gene cluster of the fungal rice pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae were expressed in Aspergillus oryzae and M. oryzae itself. Expression of ACE1 alone produced a polyenyl pyrone (magnaporthepyrone), which is regioselectively epoxidised and hydrolysed to give different diols, 6 and 7, in the two host o...

Species of Pyricularia (magnaporthe-like sexual morphs) are responsible for major diseases on grasses. Pyricularia oryzae (sexual morph Magnaporthe oryzae) is responsible for the major disease of rice called rice blast disease, and foliar diseases of wheat and millet, while Pyricularia grisea (sexual morph Magnaporthe grisea) is responsible for fol...

Frequent and devastating epidemics of parasites are one of the major issues encountered by modern agriculture. To manage the impact of pathogens, resistant plant varieties have been selected. However, resistances are overcome by parasites requiring the use of pesticides and causing new economical and food safety issues. A promising strategy to main...

Inferring invasion routes and identifying reservoirs of diversity of plant pathogens are essential in proposing new strategies for their control. Magnaporthe oryzae, the fungus responsible for rice blast disease, has invaded all rice growing areas. Virulent genotypes regularly (re)emerge, causing rapid resistance breakdowns. However, the world-wide...

Genetic structure of worldwide individuals of Magnaporthe oryzae: comparison between the DAPC and Structure methods. Fig. S2 Number of shared and specific alleles calculated over 10 microsatellites for the four Magnaporthe oryzae clusters identified in Asia.

Characteristics of the 10 microsatellites used for Magnaporthe oryzae genotyping Table S2 Unbiased gene diversity and number of private alleles in random subsamples performed in 46 Magnaporthe oryzae worldwide populations Table S3 Gene diversity and mean number of private alleles in subsamples of Magnaporthe oryzae individuals from the same genetic...

A Madagascar, le riz est à la fois la culture principale et l'aliment de base de la population. La région des Hautes Terres est densément peuplée et ses agriculteurs cultivent traditionnellement du riz irrigué. Mais il n'y a plus de surfaces disponibles pour l'aménagement de nouvelles rizières. Pour répondre à la demande croissante de riz, le Centr...

In Madagascar, rice is a staple crop and food. The highland region is densely populated. Farmerstraditionally grow irrigated rice. However, further expansion of new irrigated rice fields is almost impossible. In order to meet the growing demand for rice, FOFIFA and CIRAD joined efforts in the 80s to create upland rice varieties adapted to high alti...

Rice blast, caused by the fungal pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae, is a serious threat to rice production worldwide. In temperate regions, where rice is not cultivated for several months each year, little is known about the initial onset of the disease in the field. The main overwintering and primary inoculum sources reported are infested residues and s...

In response to the extensive development of upland rice on the hillsides of the Madagascan highlands, alternative cropping systems based on conservation agriculture have been recommended to halt declining soil fertility and to limit erosion. To assess the efficiency of these cropping systems in limiting rice blast disease and to measure their yield...

Resistance (R) proteins recognize pathogen avirulence (Avr) proteins by direct or indirect binding and are multidomain proteins generally carrying a nucleotide binding (NB) and a leucine-rich repeat (LRR) domain. Two NB-LRR protein-coding genes from rice (Oryza sativa), RGA4 and RGA5, were found to be required for the recognition of the Magnaporthe...

Full Poster session abstracts

Magnaporthe oryzae is a successful pathogen of crop plants and a major threat for food production. This species gathers pathogens of different Poaceaes, and causes the main fungal disease of rice worldwide and severe epidemics on wheat in South America. The evolutionary genomics of Magnaporthe oryzae project aims at characterizing genomic determina...

Magnaporthe oryzae is a successful pathogen of crop plants and a major threat for food production. This species gathers pathogens of different Poaceaes, and causes the main fungal disease of rice worldwide and severe epidemics on wheat in South America. The evolutionary genomics of Magnaporthe oryzae project aims at characterizing genomic determina...