Cornell and Bill Gates Announce Evolution-Based Effort to Combat Puccinia graminis Ug99

About a month ago, it was announced that the Ug99 strain of Puccinia graminis had arrived in Iran, a full two years sooner than it had been expected to arrive there. This is the strain to which 90% of the world's wheat crops have no resistance. It could potentially trigger starvation throughout Asia and touch off economic and social turmoil the world over. The good news is that the situation is starting to be addressed in concerted ways, the latest of which is the establishment of the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat Project. The project aims to develop wheat that has a combination of many genes that will give it the capability to resist not only Ug99 but future hypervirulent strains that could well emerge in the future.

Grant Awarded to Save Wheat From Fungus

Cornell University hopes a new $26.8 million grant can help them combat the emergence of deadly new strains of rust disease and help avert a pandemic that could produce catastrophic wheat crop losses worldwide.

The grant, from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will be used to develop improved rust-resistant wheat varieties and support critical wheat rust screening facilities in Kenya and Ethiopia, as well as track the spread of new variants and foster global awareness, said project director Ronnie Coffman of Cornell.

"We need to mobilize a worldwide effort. This could have a staggering impact if left unchecked," he said in a telephone interview from Obregon, Mexico, where Cornell and Gates Foundation officials announced the new Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project Wednesday at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center...

Recurring droughts and increased demand already have driven the price for some types of wheat to as much as $20 a bushel, up from about $4.50 a year ago — even without the full effect of the newest fungus strain.

Rust disease has been a historical scourge for farmers. The Romans prayed to a "stem rust god" to protect their crops. In 1953, a rust epidemic reduced spring wheat production in Canada and the U.S. by as much as 40 percent...

Large commercial wheat farmers in developed countries can afford to purchase expensive fungicides to protect their crops — although Shah noted that such treatments are only a short-term fix and pose risks to human health and the environment.

Even greater losses could occur if Ug99 continues to spread across Central Asia, where there are at least 296 million acres of wheat fields, said Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug, who developed some of the original rust-resistant wheat varieties in the 1940s and is regarded as one of the fathers of the so-called "green revolution..."

Coffman and his colleagues at Cornell will focus on identifying genetic markers and developing rust-resistant wheat types in collaboration with scientists in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mexico and Syria.

Cornell also will work with scientists in China and the Philippines to study rice, a cereal crop that has proven immune to rust diseases. Research laboratories in Australia, Canada and South Africa also will be involved in the project.

This is all very good news, I think. Borlaug is correct, of course, that a thoroughly international effort is required to combat the spread of the Ugandan P. graminis and the Gates Foundation is to be commended for putting up real money for this effort. I have no idea how much the US federal government is putting into research for this, but this should be a high priority.

It's worth mention that the solution to the Ug99 problem, as well as the origin of the strain itself, are utterly reliant upon evolutionary theory. The new strain arose due to selective pressure engendered by the inclusion of just three new genes in selectively bred wheat crops that were successful in staving off other strains after the massive outbreak of the 1950's. It took just 50 years for the fungus to find the right combination of mutations to allow it to overcome that resistance and begin spreading as a new strain. In engineering a solution, our increased understanding of the molecular basis of evolution has already led us to new insights about how to approach the problem using a multigene approach; in theory, it should be possible to predict how genes for resistance will be needed to provide very long-term protection that will put wheat far ahead of P. graminis' capacity to respond with its own set of molecular weapons. By making predictions based on the rates of evolution seen in the pathogen and then essentially vastly accelerating the evolution of wheat, it is possible to create a crop that will be resistant to the fungus for centuries instead of just a few decades. That's how far we've come in evolutionary biology in a mere 50 years.

This is also the exact thing that to which those who oppose evolutionary biology would like to put an end. Without people who have been profoundly educated in the principles that underpin every discipline of biology, there would be no solution to the devastation of P. graminis. Instead, we'd still be doing exactly what the ancient Romans did when confronted with the plague of stem rust — we'd go an pray to whatever was our equivalent of the "stem rust god" as the specter of starvation ravened the world. Such is the outcome of superstition. Thankfully, we do have scientists freed from such shackles and philanthropists willing to provide for the fiscal needs to get the job done.

If all we had were people like Ben Stein, Ronda Storms and Ray Comfort, our only hope would be for a quick demise.

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It's St. Patrick's Day, So Let's Talk Blight

Being that today is the day when everybody is supposed to be a little bit Irish, it's a good day to remember how an organism that was until fairly recently classified as a fungus once changed Ireland, America and the world. I'm talking about Phytophthora infestans which, in fairness, isn't actually a fungus but an oomycete. Oomycetes, unlike fungi, don't have a chitinous cell wall and there are some other differences as well. Still, just as non-Irish people are today a little bit Irish, let's play along and say that oomycetes are a little like fungi.

Phytophthora infestans is the pathogen that caused the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840's that led to a wave of Irish migration to the United States. Many Irish-Americans can trace their ancestry back to an emigrant who left Ireland precisely because of the blight which, in turn, caused the collapse of not only the Irish economy but the British as well due to some very ill-advised speculation in grain futures. What those emigrants didn't know was that they were actually traveling back along the path by which P. infestans had gotten to Ireland in the first place. The population of the organism that caused the blight was native to America; it had already triggered the destruction of potato crops throughout the eastern US. From here, it traveled aboard a shipment of potatoes to Belgium and proceeded to demolish potato crops in that country and the Netherlands before finding its way to Ireland and triggering greatest wave of emigration from that country in all of its history.

For those who would like to read more about the specifics of how the Blight reached Ireland, today's New York Times is running a column entitled "The Fungus That Conquered Europe" (warning: registration is necessary to read the piece).

Of course, Phytopthora is a genus still very much with us. In recent years, close relatives of the potato famine pathogen have also damaged citrus crops in Florida with root and crown rots and are also responsible for sudden oak death and, to a lesser extent, are pathogens of a great number of vegetable crops. There are other parallels in the modern world to the Irish famine of the 1840's, too. As I've noted previously, the Ug99 strain of Puccinia graminis poses a major threat to world wheat crops and the rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe grisea, is a major pathogen with enough genetic variability around the world to pose an ever-looming threat as well.

Despite my nom d'blog, I'm not actually Irish — not even a little bit. Considering how much something like a fungus affected Ireland less than two centuries ago and how much that something changed the face of America forever, too, it's a good day for a bit of mycological reflection. For most of us, fungi aren't something we give much thought. Until they affect us by taking food off our tables or eating through the walls of our homes, fungal pathogens really don't get much opportunity to escape into conscious consideration. They could at any moment, though, change our lives forever. They've certainly done so before.

St. Patrick may have driven the snakes out of Ireland according to legend, but he doesn't seem to have been very good against Phytophthora. Still while you're hoisting a green beer at O'Malley's Pub today, keep in mind that a few errant cells from the right fungus can do a lot more than ferment what's in your mug; they can also foment massive changes in the course of human history.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all.

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Wheat-Decimating Fungus Appears in Southwestern Asia

Puccinia graminis strain Ug99, a particularly virulent strain of the fungus that causes wheat stem rust has made it across the Arabian Peninsula. One variant of Ug99 reported from Kenya last year has already overcome genetically-engineered resistance in its host. As of last December, the strain had jumped across the Red Sea from Ethiopia to Yemen. the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported yesterday that the fungus has now been found in Iran for the first time.

Iran finds wheat fungus, threat to region - FAO

Iran has detected a 'wheat rust' fungus in its crops that poses a potential threat for production there and in surrounding countries, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Wednesday.

Iran informed FAO that it had discovered Ug99 -- a virulent fungus strain first detected in Uganda in 1999 -- in the west of the country...

"Countries east of Iran, like Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, all major wheat producers, are most threatened by the fungus and should be on high alert," FAO said...

The spread of the wheat disease comes as world wheat stocks are already at 30-year lows and prices are soaring to record highs. A researcher at Oregon State University said the U.S. wheat crop could be hit by the fungus within the next four to five years.

The article doesn't specify whether this is normal Ug99 or the even more destructive variant reported from Kenya last year, but that's largely a matter of splitting hairs; plain old Ug99 already has the potential to affect 80% of the world's cultivated wheat. The newly-evolved Kenyan variant might take out another 5 or 10%. Any way you slice it, that's bad news.

I don't know what, if anything, the US is doing about this as a whole, though there must be some research going on here to figure out how to stop the fungus from hitting our own crops. Three to four years isn't a very long time, and fungal spores can certainly travel long distances in a short while. There's not much reason that a fungus that made it to Asia couldn't spring up almost overnight in North America. Even if the US government is worrying about preventing the spread of P. graminis here, though, it would make good sense to be involved with stopping it in Asia before it spreads further into Central Asia and China. Out of purely humanitarian concerns first, but also because a serious wheat shortage could touch off hostilities and cause economic hardships that would affect the whole world. To the extent that the US can be of help — not to take anything away from the Chinese and Japanese, who have much more research in mycology underway than we do — we should be of help, without regard to political considerations.

That last sentence might be asking too much, of course, out of the ideologues we have in command right now. We probably won't do anything about the situation unless and until it becomes a problem right here.

Here is a recent research paper wherein US-cultivated winter wheat varieties are tested for resistance to the new P. graminis strain. The results aren't exactly good news. A 2005 assessment of the risks to various parts of the world and strategies for control is also available. Again, it's not exactly good news for anybody, and hopefully it has been a real wake-up call.

Where things stand at the genetic level can be assessed at the USDA grain genes site.

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Good Fungus, Bad Fungus: Cryptococcus and Phellinus in the News

I'm still insanely busy and haven't had time to keep up with reading, let alone writing, blogs. The ends of semesters are crazy times.

Still, a couple of recent stories in the news regarding fungi caught my eye and they're worth a quick note.

First, the bad news. There appears to have been another death in British Columbia caused by Cryptococcus gattii. This time, the victim is a 45 year old woman from Cowichan Bay. The article doesn't mention whether she was immunocompromised; most people who have contracted C. gattii infections have been. That's bad enough, so I hope that she had some prior medical history that explains her susceptibility. For otherwise healthy people to start succumbing would point to the possibility of an even worse scenario.

Fungus suspected in Cowichan Bay death

The B.C. Coroners Service is investigating the death of a Cowichan Bay woman at Victoria General Hospital Tuesday morning who is suspected to have died from a yeast-like fungus found on trees on Vancouver Island.

Regional coroner Rose Stanton said the 45-year-old woman's death is under investigation but she is suspected to have died from Cryptococcus gattii. Results won't be available until the end of the week. About one person dies from the disease in B.C. each year...

There's also good news, though. I haven't read the publication yet, but it's being reported that an extract from the hymenochaete Phellinus linteus may ultimately help in treating cancer by preventing angiogenesis. Any potential new tool in fighting cancer is to be cause for a little celebration, though it should be cautioned that this has only been tested by direct application to cancer cells in a petri dish; it's a long way off from human trials. Still, yay Phellinus!

Mushroom extract may stop breast cancer growth

Extracts from a mushroom used for centuries in Eastern Asian medicine may stop breast cancer cells from growing and could become a new weapon in the fight against the killer disease, scientists said on Tuesday.

Laboratory tests using human breast cancer cells show the mushroom called Phellinus linteus has a marked anti-cancer effect, probably by blocking an enzyme called AKT. AKT is known to control signals that lead to cell growth.

Phellinus linteus -- called song gen in Chinese medicine, sang-hwang in Korean and meshimakobu in Japanese -- has previously been shown to have anti-tumour properties on skin, lung and prostate cancer cells.

The new research on breast cancer, however, marks the first time that scientists have started to understand how it works...

The findings were reported in the British Journal of Cancer.

This latest story comes on the heels of a recent report that a compound in Ganoderma lucidum (also polyporoid but only distantly related to Phellinus) blocks androgen receptors and thus may be useful in treating or even preventing prostate cancer. It all makes me proud to be a mad mycologist, even if a few bad apples like Cryptococcus and Puccinia crop up. Those aren't charismatic macrofungi, anyhow.

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Out of Africa: Newly Evolved Fungus Strain Threatens World Wheat Crop

The dark side of fungal evolution rears its rusty head. A new variant of wheat stem rust fungus (Puccinia graminis) has been reported in Kenya. The variant is of the Ug99 strain, a line first reported from Uganda in 1999 that has already managed to cross the Red Sea and is threatening wheat supplies. While the "normal" Ug99 strain already had the potential to infect 80% of the world's wheat, the Kenyan variant has reportedly evolved resistance to genes that are being used to protect those crops. It thus has the potential to destroy even more than its most recent ancestor, already one of the most devastating grain diseases on the planet.

Scientists grapple with fungus that is destroying wheat

...The fungal disease also threatens barley and has crossed the Red Sea towards Yemen. If not checked, it will be soon afflicting wheat fields in Egypt, the Middle East and Asia.

Under GRI, governments and other research institutions in Kenya, Australia, Canada, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, South Africa, Uganda , Sudan, Turkey and Yemen are joining in the efforts to address the current crisis...

Prof Jin confirmed that a new variant of Ug99 that has been found in Kenya has shown more resistance to existing genetic treatment, putting more wheat fields in danger.

“It could broaden the disease’s reach to beyond the 80 per cent of the world’s wheat that is at risk,” said lead researcher RickWard of the International Wheat and Maize Improvement Centre (CIMMYT)

Previous field studies in Kenya and Ethiopia showed that ug99 has overcome most of the known stem rust resistance genes deployed in wheat cultivars over the years...

Mutation plus natural selection can be a real bitch. We're used to hearing about antibiotic-resistance bacteria evolving rapidly, but eukaryotes can achieve the same sort of result, especially mass-reproducers like fungi.

More info on the fungal phytopathogen is available from the USDA Agricultural Research Service Cereal Disease Laboratory. The info there is mainly on non-Ug99 strains already known in the US. Ug99 hasn't made it here yet.

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A Last Excellent Day at MSA

Today was my last day at the MSA conference. There's still one more day left, but for a variety of reasons I have to get up early tomorrow and make the long drive back to Worcester. Not the least of these is the fact that a petty, bureaucratic,politically-motivated dean at Florida State University has taken it upon himself to put up a massive and ridiculous roadblock in the way of LL's quest for a PhD. I won't get into the details; she'll write about it when and if she's ready. All I'll say is that I've never heard of such a moronic, pig-headed thing being done to someone who has been one of the few bright lights for a department that is now being dissolved largely because of the incompetence of another pig-headed bureaucrat in academic clothing. With people like these deans at the helm, I would have to advise anyone considering a PhD program at Florida State to put it as low on their list of possibilities as they can possibly can. If it were a boat, it would have the word "Titanic" painted at the prow.

Other than learning of LL being screwed over yet again, though, today was the kind of day that makes me regret having to leave a day early. Two lablings gave excellent presentations on their research as did my advisor. I take a good deal of pride in being part of this group even if I haven't begun contributing as much as I hope to... soon.

I had lunch today with Joey Spatafora and my advisor and so had the chance to listen in and/or talk about everything from plans for AFTOL2 to Wall-E and The Fantastic Planet. I learned that Joey reads this blog when he recognized me upon our introduction as Mike O'Risal. So did one of the postdocs from his lab. In fact, no fewer than four people I met today already knew me by my nom d'blog. I had best be careful not to mention my rampant crack addiction and penchant for devouring live kittens here. Someone might be looking.

Today was also the day of the Karling Lecture, delivered by Nick Talbot of the University of Exeter. The topic was "Investigating the biology of plant infection by the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe grisea using functional genomics." The rice blast fungus is a problem right up there with the potential of Puccinia graminis Ug99, wiping out up to 30% of the world's rice crops in any given year. Dr. Talbot's work on the mechanisms by which the fungus initiates and spreads infection seems to hold tremendous promise in addressing the problem. Some of the proteomics involved are well beyond the scope of my understanding; I'm not a proteins person by any stretch. Still, even I can grasp that if one can come to an understanding of how the subcellular mechanics of infection work, there's real hope of coming up with a solution.

After the Karling lecture, I met up with Meredith Blackwell and handed her three dead beetles. That might be perceived as an insult in some circles, but not in this one. I'll be sending some live specimens her way in the near future, too, and hopefully we'll be able to exchange some data and materials. I'm particularly looking forward to continued contact with the people I've met from her lab. Even though I don't think I'll be part of the next round of AFTOL research, others in my lab will be and her lab will also be involved, and we're all working on bugs and fungus in one way or another.

I had dinner at a little Indian place called Kaarma just around the corner from my hotel. I was joined by labling RiGa, Dan Durall from the University of British Columbia Okanagan, and Kentaro Hosaka from the National Museum of Nature and Science of Japan. It was a very nice cap to what has been an inspiring few days for me. If you should find yourself in State College, PA, I recommend checking out Kaarma.

I have indeed come away from this conference feeling inspired. I've got some new ideas and am itching to try them out, particularly when I get back from Florida laden with new specimens. Stephanie Gross and I talked today about there being a coleoptera/fungi symbiosis session at next year's MSA meeting. There are a bunch of us out there, and all we need to do is be in the same place at the same time with material to present. The place next year will be Snowbird in Utah and the time will be July 25-30, 2009. Now all I need is the material.

I'll get back to work on that on Thursday.

For now, my priorities are sleep and then the long drive back to Worcester. Sequences await.

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