Population genomic analyses were used to identify the potential source of an outbreak of wheat blast in Bangladesh.

In February 2016, a fungal disease was spotted in wheat fields across eight districts in Bangladesh. The epidemic spread to an estimated 15,741 hectares of wheat crops with yield losses reaching up to 100% and affecting 20% of total wheat production of the country. Within weeks of the onset of the epidemic, we performed transcriptome sequencing of symptomatic leaf samples directly collected from Bangladeshi fields. Population genomics analyses revealed that the outbreak was caused by a wheat-infecting South American lineage of the blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae. We show that genomic surveillance can be rapidly established to monitor plant disease outbreaks yielding valuable information about the precise identity of the infectious agent.

2016年2月，孟加拉国八个地区的麦田中首次发现真菌病害。此次疫情预估波及15741公顷小麦田，减产幅度最高可达100%，影响该国小麦总产量的20%。疫情暴发数周内，本研究团队对直接从孟加拉国田间采集的染病叶片样本开展了转录组测序（transcriptome sequencing）。种群基因组学分析显示，本次疫情由一株可侵染小麦的南美谱系稻瘟病菌（Magnaporthe oryzae）引发。本研究证实，可快速建立基因组监测体系以监控植物病害疫情，从而获取病原菌精确种类的宝贵信息。