Rust fungi (Basidiomycota, Pucciniales) are biotrophic plant pathogens which exhibit diverse complexities in their life cycles and host ranges. The completion of genome sequencing of a few rust fungi has revealed the occurrence of large genomes. Sequencing efforts for other rust fungi have been hampered by uncertainty concerning their genome sizes. Flow cytometry was recently applied to estimat...

We developed an evolutionary relevant model system, barley-Puccinia [corrected] rust fungi, to study the inheritance and specificity of plant factors that determine to what extent innate nonhost immunity can be suppressed. A mapping population was developed from a cross between an experimental barley line (SusPtrit) [corrected] with exceptional susceptibility to several heterologous [corrected]...

The aim of this study was to determine the evolutionary time line for rust fungi and date key speciation events using a molecular clock. Evidence is provided that supports a contemporary view for a recent origin of rust fungi, with a common ancestor on a flowering plant. Divergence times for > 20 genera of rust fungi were studied with Bayesian evolutionary analyses. A relaxed molecular clock wa...

Recent advances in the field of sequencing technologies and bioinformatics allow a more rapid access to genomes of non-model organisms at sinking costs. Accordingly, draft genomes of several economically important cereal rust fungi have been released in the last 3 years. Aside from the very recent flax rust and poplar rust draft assemblies there are no genomic data available for other dicot-inf...

Rust fungi are a group of fungal pathogens that cause some of the world's most destructive diseases of trees and crops. A shared characteristic among rust fungi is obligate biotrophy, the inability to complete a lifecycle without a host. This dependence on a host species likely affects patterns of gene expansion, contraction, and innovation within rust pathogen genomes. The establishment of dis...

In the framework of study on rust fungi of Fabaceae and based on the study of herbarium and newly collected specimens, six Uromyces species are recognized on Medicago spp. and Trifolium spp. from Iran. Among these species, U. fallens is recorded as new member for the Iranian rust flora. U. striatus is recorded as main causal agent of rust on lucerne (Medicago sativa) in Iran. Moreover, U. trifo...

Interactive identification keys for Australian smut fungi (Ustilaginomycotina and Pucciniomycotina, Microbotryales) and rust fungi (Pucciniomycotina, Pucciniales) are available online at http://collections.daff.qld.gov.au. The keys were built using Lucid software, and facilitate the identification of all known Australian smut fungi (317 species in 37 genera) and 100 rust fungi (from approximate...

The interaction of crop pests with their natural enemies is a fundament to their control. Natural enemies of fungal pathogens of crops are poorly known relative to those of insect pests, despite the diversity of fungal pathogens and their economic importance. Currently, many regions across Latin America are experiencing unprecedented epidemics of coffee rust (Hemileia vastatrix). Identification...

Arasbaran is one of the most important protected regions in Iran located in NW of the country and east of E Azarbaijan Province. Several reports have been published on the mycobiota of this region however there is only few records about rust fungi of Arasbaran. Our research on rust fungi of Arasbaran region get started since 2006. During this study, several rust taxa collected and identified fr...

Rust fungi include many species that are devastating crop pathogens. To develop resistant plants, a better understanding of rust virulence factors, or effector proteins, is needed. Thus far, only six rust effector proteins have been described: AvrP123, AvrP4, AvrL567, AvrM, RTP1, and PGTAUSPE-10-1. Although some are well established model proteins used to investigate mechanisms of immune recept...