BAFUS - Un projet INRAE_MICA (2024-2025)

Fusarium is the causal agent of the Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) disease affecting wheat production and grain quality due to the presence of mycotoxins produced by the pathogen. This disease is the result of the infection of wheat spikelet tissues by several Fusarium pathogenic species, whose assembly depends on climatic conditions, agronomic factors and host genotype. However, the role of the wheat microbiota on the success of the infection is less known and needs further investigations. The main objective of this project is to determine whether and how the wheat microbiota influences the species composition of Fusarium in wheat grains and the production of mycotoxins.

We propose a new approach combining molecular and cultural methods, which will allow not only to identify taxa that co-occur within wheat grains, but also to test their interactions in vitro. The investigation of both Fusarium and bacterial communities by amplicon sequencing of a large set of wheat grain samples (N > 500) will be followed by multidomain co-occurrence network analysis in order to identify bacterial taxa that are negatively or positively correlated with each Fusarium species as well as with the different families of Fusarium mycotoxins. Interactions between each Fusarium species and the bacterial taxa positively and negatively correlated with the corresponding Fusarium species will then be tested in vitro by coculturing Fusarium and bacterial isolates or synthetic communities (SynComs) that will be built in the frame of this project.

This project will provide first indices about the results of microbial interactions between Fusarium and wheat-associated bacteria that happen in wheat grains. This will help to fill the knowledge gap about the contribution of the plant microbiota to the well-known effects of environmental conditions on FHB and wheat grain alteration. The present project will also constitute the first basis for the future development of bacterial SynComs that are representative of the cereal microbiota, which will be made available for future mechanistic studies.

BAFUS is funded by INRAE_MICA and was in the framework of GPR Bordeaux Plant Sciences, University of Bordeaux.