Location: Mycotoxin Prevention and Applied Microbiology Research
Project Number: 5010-11420-001-013-R
Project Type: Reimbursable Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Mar 1, 2026
End Date: Jul 31, 2028
Objective:
-Test impacts of Fusarium pathogen infection progress on synthetic microbiome (SynCom) community assembly.
Identify members of the SynCom most responsible for reduction in Fusarium head blight disease outcomes in host.
-Characterize barley host genetic controls on disease outcomes and SynCom microbiome community assembly.
Approach:
Develop high-throughput culturing pipeline for fungal endophyte portion of SynCom in barley.
Perform microbial SynCom experiments in barley using existing bacterial endophyte strains and developed fungal endophyte strains. Goal is to design a synthetic microbial biocontrol that reduces symptoms of Fusarium head blight disease in malting barley, resulting from infection with Fusarium graminearum.
Genome sequence subset of SynCom biocontrol strains and identify functional genes involved in disease reduction of SynCom efficacy.
Identify malting barley host genes, metabolites, or other physical traits involved in both reduction in Fusarium head blight disease and recruitment of beneficial biocontrols in the SynCom.
ARS portion of the work will include providing expert advice on microbiome analyses, fungal endophyte ecology, greenhouse inoculations of microbial biocontrols, and data analytics; in addition, formal mentorship of one postdoctoral research scientist stationed with ARS and informal mentoring.