Functional analyses of Citrus-associated Phyllosticta species

The development of new strategies for the control fungal phytopathogens may rely on functional approaches, which aim to understand and describe the molecular mechanisms involved in pathogenicity and virulence, as well as the host-pathogen interaction. Many functional analyses employ genetic transformation in order to investigate the function of specific genes or it’s regulation mechanisms. Several methods are available, such as protoplast-mediated transformation, eletroporation and Agrobacterium tumefaciens mediated transformation (ATMT). In Phyllosticta citricarpa, ATMT using mycelium and spores allowed the construction of a transformant library and identification of candidate genes involved in picnidiospores production (Goulin et al. 2016). New goals in this project now include the deletion of the previously identified candidate genes, as well as obtention of new DsRed/GFP transformants, as well as optimizing a RNAi method for Phyllosticta citricarpa and other Citrus-associated Phyllosticta species. This project is conducted at BioGeMM (Bioprospecting and Molecular Genetics of Microrganisms lab) at UFPR, in Brazil, in collaboration with Prof. Marcos Machado from IAC.