James Hane

Curtin University · Centre for Crop and DIsease Management (CCDM)

Parastagonospora nodorum is necrotrophic fungal pathogen of wheat with significant genomic resources. Population-level pangenome data for 173 isolates, of which 156 were from Western Australia (WA) and 17 were international, were examined for overall genomic diversity and effector gene content. A heterothallic core population occurred across all re...

This study describes the first genome sequence and analysis of Coniella granati, a fungal pathogen with a broad host range, which is responsible for postharvest crown rot, shoot blight, and canker diseases in pomegranates. C. granati is a geographically widespread pathogen which has been reported across Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Africa. Our a...

Pathogenic fungal diseases in crops are mediated by the release of effector proteins that facilitate infection. Characterising the structure of these fungal effectors is vital to understanding their virulence mechanisms and interactions with their hosts, which is crucial in the breeding of plant cultivars for disease resistance. Several effectors h...

The discovery of new fungal effector proteins is necessary to enable the screening of cultivars for disease resistance. Sequence-based bioinformatics methods have been used for this purpose, but only a limited number of functional effector proteins have been successfully predicted and subsequently validated experimentally. A significant obstacle is...

Guava wilt disease is caused by the fungus Nalanthamala psidii. The wilt disease results in large-scale destruction of orchards in South Africa, Taiwan, and several Southeast Asian countries. De novo assembly, annotation, and in-depth analysis of the N. psidii genome were carried out to facilitate the identification of characteristics associated wi...

Fungal plant-pathogens promote infection of their hosts through the release of ‘effectors’—a broad class of cytotoxic or virulence-promoting molecules. Effectors may be recognised by resistance or sensitivity receptors in the host, which can determine disease outcomes. Accurate prediction of effectors remains a major challenge in plant pathology, b...

Plant diseases caused by fungal pathogens are typically initiated by molecular interactions between ‘effector’ molecules released by a pathogen and receptor molecules on or within the plant host cell. In many cases these effector-receptor interactions directly determine host resistance or susceptibility. The search for fungal effector proteins is a...

The wheat pathogen Parastagonospora nodorum has emerged as a model necrotrophic fungal species with growing genomic resources. Recent population-level pan-genome studies were leveraged to provide novel insights into pathogen evolution and effector-like gene contents relevant to local crop disease outbreaks. In this study, we examined 156 isolates r...

Phytophthora cinnamomi is a pathogenic oomycete that causes plant dieback disease across a range of natural ecosystems and in many agriculturally important crops on a global scale. An annotated draught genome sequence is publicly available (JGI Mycocosm) and suggests 26,131 gene models. In this study, soluble mycelial, extracellular (secretome), an...

Background The fungus Parastagonospora nodorum causes septoria nodorum blotch (SNB) of wheat ( Triticum aestivum ) and is a model species for necrotrophic plant pathogens. The genome assembly of reference isolate Sn15 was first reported in 2007. P. nodorum infection is promoted by its production of proteinaceous necrotrophic effectors, three of whi...

‘Effectors’ are a broad class of cytotoxic or virulence-promoting molecules that are released from plant-pathogen cells to cause disease in their host. Fungal effectors are a core research area for improving host disease resistance; however, because they generally lack common distinguishing features or obvious sequence similarity, discovery of effe...

In the absence of a primary crop host, secondary plant hosts may act as a reservoir for fungal plant pathogens of agricultural crops. Secondary hosts may potentially harbor heteroecious biotrophs (e.g., the stripe rust fungus Puccinia striiformis) or other pathogens with broad host ranges. Agricultural grain production tends toward monoculture or a...

Phytophthora cinnamomi is a pathogenic oomycete that causes plant dieback disease across a range of natural ecosystems and in many agriculturally important crops on a global scale. An annotated draft genome sequence and annotation is publicly available (JGI Mycocosm) and suggests 26,131 gene models. In this study, soluble mycelial, extracellular (s...

Phytophthora cinnamomi is a pathogenic oomycete that causes plant dieback disease across a range of natural ecosystems and in many agriculturally important crops on a global scale. An annotated draft genome sequence and annotation is publicly available (JGI Mycocosm) and suggests 26,131 gene models. In this study, soluble mycelial, extracellular (s...

Ascochyta rabiei is the causal organism of ascochyta blight of chickpea and is present in chickpea crops worldwide. Here we report the release of a high-quality PacBio genome assembly for the Australian A. rabiei isolate ArME14. We compare the ArME14 genome assembly with an Illumina assembly for Indian A. rabiei isolate, ArD2. The ArME14 assembly h...

The traditional classification of fungal and oomycete phytopathogens into three classes – biotrophs, hemibiotrophs, or necrotrophs – is unsustainable. This study highlights multiple phytopathogen species for which these labels have been inappropriately applied. We propose a novel and reproducible classification based solely on genome-derived analys...

Background Narrow-leafed lupin is an emerging crop of significance in agriculture, livestock feed and human health food. However, its susceptibility to various diseases is a major obstacle towards increased adoption. Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and Botrytis cinerea – both necrotrophs with broad host-ranges - are reported among the top 10 lupin pathoge...

The pathogenic fungus Sclerotinia sclerotiorum infects over 600 species of plant. It is present in numerous environments throughout the world and causes significant damage to many agricultural crops. Fragmentation and lack of gene flow between populations may lead to population sub-structure. Within discrete recombining populations, positive select...

Accessions of HSP60 sequences from fungi used for construction of the phylogenetic tree in Fig A in S1 File. (XLSX)

Fig A. Read depths across variants called in the Sclerotinia sclerotiorum genome. Blue vertical lines represent a depth of 150 x, which was the maximum for retaining a variant. We chose this value as it was approximately placed at the upper end of the distribution of the majority of variants called across all populations. Fig B. Phylogenetic tree p...

Parameter estimates and log likelihoods of the demographic models fit to the Sclerotinia sclerotiorum SNP data. (XLSX)

Recombination rates determined for the two Sclerotinia sclerotiorum populations using LDHat. (XLSX)

Information on isolates used in this study. (XLSX)

Species in the genus Paecilomyces, a member of the fungal order Eurotiales, are ubiquitous in nature and impact a variety of human endeavors. Here, the biology of one common species, Paecilomyces variotii, was explored using genomics and functional genetics. Sequencing the genome of two isolates revealed key genome and gene features in this species...

Key message: This study revealed that the western Mediterranean provided the founder population for domesticated narrow-leafed lupin and that genetic diversity decreased significantly during narrow-leafed lupin domestication. The evolutionary history of plants during domestication profoundly shaped the genome structure and genetic diversity of tod...

We report a fungal pan-genome study involving Parastagonospora spp., including 21 isolates of the wheat (Triticum aestivum) pathogen P. nodorum, 10 of the grass-infecting P. avenae and 2 of a closely-related undefined sister species. We observed substantial variation in the distribution of polymorphisms across the pan-genome, including repeat-induc...

Fungal pathogen genomes can often be divided into core and accessory regions. Accessory regions ARs) may be comprised of either ARs (within core chromosomes (CCs) or wholly dispensable (accessory) chromosomes (ACs). Fungal ACs and ARs typically accumulate mutations and structural rearrangements more rapidly over time than CCs and many harbor genes...

The pathogenic fungus Sclerotinia sclerotiorum infects over 600 species of plant. It is present in numerous environments throughout the world and causes significant damage to many agricultural crops. Fragmentation and lack of gene flow between populations may lead to population sub-structure. Within discrete recombining populations, positive select...

Background: Pyrenophora tritici-repentis (Ptr) is a necrotrophic fungal pathogen that causes the major wheat disease, tan spot. We set out to provide essential genomics-based resources in order to better understand the pathogenicity mechanisms of this important pathogen. Results: Here, we present eight new Ptr isolate genomes, assembled and anno...

Fungal pathogen genomes can often be divided into core and accessory regions. Accessory regions may be comprised of either accessory regions (ARs) within core chromosomes (CCs), or wholly-dispensable (accessory) chromosomes (ACs). Fungal ACs and ARs typically accumulate mutations and structural rearrangements more rapidly over time than CCs, and ma...

Key message: This first pan-Mediterranean analysis of genetic diversity in wild narrow-leafed lupin revealed strong East-West genetic differentiation of populations, an historic eastward migration, and signatures of genetic adaptation to climatic variables. Most grain crops suffer from a narrow genetic base, which limits their potential for adapti...

Our agricultural system and hence food security is threatened by combination of events, such as increasing population, the impacts of climate change and the need to a more sustainable development. Evolutionary adaptation may help some species to overcome environmental changes through new selection pressures driven by climate change. However, succes...

Effector proteins are important virulence factors of fungal plant pathogens and their prediction largely relies on bioinformatic methods. In this review we outline the current methods for the prediction of fungal plant pathogenicity effector proteins. Some fungal effectors have been characterised and are represented by conserved motifs or in sequen...