The aim of this coursework is to enable you to apply the knowledge and understanding gained through the module to write a ‘pathogen profile’ for a particular disease. Each student will be provided with the name of a specific pathogen, and must then write a profile of this disease that includes each of the following sections.
1 Title – name of disease and your student number (please do not provide your name on the work itself, so that they can be downloaded from Moodle and marked anonymously).
2 Overview – General overview of the pathogen, to include details of its symptoms, host range, global distribution and impact on agriculture/horticulture/forestry (historical and current).
3. Pathogenicity mechanisms – outline what is known about the molecular mechanisms that the pathogen uses to overcome disease resistance mechanisms (including for example innate immunity) and what is known about the pathogenicity factors that the pathogens uses to colonise the plant / cause symptoms. In the case of viruses, outline what is known about the functions of the different genes encoded by the virus.
4. Genomics / molecular variability – describe what stage the genome sequencing of the organism is at, and what is known about molecular variation in the pathogen and how this in turn relates to virulence characteristics on different hosts etc.
5. Resistance mechanisms against the pathogen – provide an overview of what, if any resistance mechanisms can be used by growers to help protect plants – this may involve details of gene-for-gene type resistance, polygenic (horizontal) resistance or any systemic resistance type approaches that have been shown to work for control.
6. Future prospects – based on the details that have been provided in the sections above, provide a summary of what, in your opinion, should be the priorities for future molecular studies into the pathogen; for example, should these be focussed on particular types of resistance mechanisms against the pathogen, better understanding of the key genes involved in pathogenicity so that alternative crop protection methods might be developed and/or better understanding of how the pathogen evolves?
7. References – Harvard style presentation of references in a consistent format.
