Nutrient acquisition and secondary metabolites in plant pathogenic fungi

Fusarium graminearum is a necrotrophic plant pathogen that leads to severe infections of cereals contaminating them with mycotoxins harmful to human and animal. Blumeria graminis f. sp. hordei is an obligate biotroph that causes powdery mildew infections of barley. In this thesis, lifecycles and infection processes of these two distinct phytopathogens are described with special attention on the importance of uptake and reallocation of nutrients. Nutrient uptake from host plant is crucial for fungi to grow and proliferate and during several developmental processes nutrient reallocation, a mechanism called autophagy, is crucial.
In this ph.d project autophagy and dipeptide transport in Fg and Bgh is assessed with respect to pathology, developmental processes and mycotoxins production. Several techniques within molecular biology, bioinformatics, microbiology, analytical chemistry and plant pathology have been discovered and deployed.