Iowa State UniversitySummer 2018 Newsletter

Department of Plant Pathology & Microbiology

Inoculating maize plants with the Northern Corn Leaf Blight disease pathogen Exserohilum turcicum.

-Photo provided by Max McReynolds

Finishing tissue collection right before the storm. Nick Lauter’s and Justin Walley’s lab

-Photo provided by Max McReynolds

Mohsin taking radiometer readings at Hinds farm

-Photo provided by Muhammad Mohsin Raza

Sudden Death Symdrome early symptoms in a farmer’s field

-Photo provided by Muhammad Mohsin Raza

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Table of Contents

ContentsTable of Contents 2Department News 3 4 5Recent Graduates 6New members of the PLPM Family 6 7Summer Activities 7 8Charles J. Gould Travel Awardees 9Recent Publications, 2018 10Donations to the PLPM Department 11

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Department News

Dr. Mark Gleason Elected as the new APS Vice-president

Dr. Mark Gleason was recently elected Vice President of the American Phytopathological Society (APS). The position is a 4-year commitment, rotating in successive years to President-elect, President, and Immediate Past President. APS records indicate that the most recent ISU plant pathologist to serve as APS Presi-dent was George L. McNew in 1952-53.

Dr. Gleason accepted his position at the end of the 2018 International Con-gress of Plant Pathology (ICPP) held in Boston from July 29-August 3.

Dr. Justin Walley receives two NSF grants

Graph taken from the NSF FY2017 Financial highlights (Click the image to access the complete report).

The NSF funds basic research that pushes the boundaries of innovation and lays the groundwork for scientific breakthroughs that advance our nation’s economy, security, and global leader-ship. NSF is funded primarily through six Congressional appro-priations, which totaled approximately $7.4 million for the 2017 fiscal year (FY). Last year’s overall funding rate was 23% while this year’s funding rate was projected to be approximately 19% on the FY2018 NSF Budget Request to Congress. Based on the FY2017 award summary, the state of Iowa received about 0.68% of the over-all budget. Iowa State University received 68% of the money award-ed to different institutions in the state of Iowa. Congratulations to Dr. Walley for forming part of those 19% awardees.

Dr. Justin Walley received two NSF grants. The first grant awards $677,000 for a period of four years (August 2018 to July 2022) for his grant proposal titled: “Elucidation of roles that protein acetylation plays in mediating plant-pathogen in-teractions.” During this project, Walley’s lab intend to perform –omics, biochem-istry, and genetics experiments to investigate the repertoire of acetylation changes triggered by pathogen infections in model plants such as maize and Arabidopsis. For the second NSF grant award, Dr. Yanhai Yin will serve as the principal investigator while Dr. Walley will serve as the co-principal investigator. The grant proposal “Network-Based Discovery of Brassinosteroid Regulation of Plant Growth and Stress Responses in Arabidopsis” was awarded $900,000 to be spent over the period of three years (August 2018 to July 2021). This project will use an integrated genetics, genomics, and proteomics approach to establish and experimentally test a comprehensive Arabidopsis Gene Regulatory Network (GRN) governing Brassi-nosteroids-regulated growth and drought responses.

Dr. Mark Gleason

Dr. Justin Walley

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Department News

Dr. Gwyn Beattie was invited to West and East Coast states to present her research

Gwyn Beattie gave invited talks at Oregon State University, at the Interna-tional Congress of Plant Pathology (ICPP) 2018 meeting in Boston, and at the 21st Penn State Plant Biology Symposium. In Oregon she spoke on “Wild and Tamed Phytobiomes”, at Penn State University she spoke on “Exploring the impact of plant enrichment for beneficial rhizosphere communities under drought stress”, and at the 2018 ICPP meeting, Dr. Beattie talked about the significance of photosensing in plant microbe lifecycles in her talk “Seeing the light: The roles of red and blue light sensing in bacterial plant pathogens.” In addition to presenting her research, Dr. Beattie helped organized the ICPP Satellite meeting held on Saturday, July 28 with the tittle: “The International Agricultural Microbiome Research Coordina-tion Network: scope, synergies, and scale.”

Dr. Greg Tylka gave a talk at the Society of Nematologists in Albuquerque, New Mexico

Greg Tylka was an invited speaker in a workshop titled “Career Paths” at the annual meeting of the Society of Nematologists in Albuquerque, New Mexico, July 22-25, 2018. The title of his presentation was “Extension Education in the Heartland of Corn and Soybean Production in the United States”.

Gwyn Beattie’s Lab traveled to Italy to present their research

Bridget Hatfield and Gwyn Beattie went to a Gordon Conference on Photosen-sory Receptors and Signal Transduction in Lucca, Italy in March. Bridget presented a poster with the tittle: “Understanding the central role of bacteriophytochrome regulation in the plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae” and Dr. Beattie presented an invited talk with the tittle: “How a bacterial phytochrome influences plant colonization”. They learned about how photosensing at the femtosecond timescale can actually be relevant to plant pathogens.

Dr. Gwyn Beattie

Dr. Greg Tylka

Bridget Hatfield

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Department NewsPLPM Graduate Students presented their research at the NC-APS meeting in Fargo,

North Dakota

This summer, PLPM graduate students Kunle Olawole and Muhammad Mohsin Raza attended the 2018 American Phytopathological Society (APS) North Central Division Meeting on June 12-14 at Fargo, North Dakota. Each student presented a poster at this meeting. Kunle presented his re-search with the poster titled: “The effector Eop1 functions as a host-specific virulence factor in Erwinia tracheiphila” while Mohsin presented research in a poster titled: “Time of sud-den death syndrome foliar symptom onset influences soybean yield.”

Both Kunle Olawole and Muhammad Mohsin were also awarded the Charles Gould Graduate Student Travel Award to attend the APS North Central Division Meeting.

Valeria Velasquez-Zapata from Roger Wise’s lab attended the Annual International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Mo-lecular Biology (ISMB) held in Chicago from July 6-10. The ISMB is one of the most important meetings of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB). This conference brings together scientists from computer science, molecular biology, mathematics, statistics and related fields. Its principal focus is on the development and application of advanced computational methods for biological problems. Valeria was awarded the Gould Travel Award from the PLPM department. At this conference, Valeria presented a poster with the title: “Identification of Dynamic Transcriptional Regulators of Plant Disease Resistance using the Barley-Powdery Mildew Patho-system.”

Roger Wise’s graduate student attended the annual international conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology

Valeria Velasquez presenting her poster

Kunle Olawole

Mohsin Raza

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Recent GraduatesDr. Matthew Hunt

Matthew Hunt completed his Ph.D. degree in Genetics and Genomics under the guidance of professors: Roger Wise and Steve Whitham. The title of Matt’s defense seminar presented on Wednesday, July 11, 2018 was “Biological roles of small RNAs expressed during infection of barley by the obligate fungal biotroph, Blumeria graminis f. sp. Hordei.”

Dr. Mercy Kabahuma

Mercy Kabahuma successfully completed her Ph.D. in Genetics and Genom-ics under the guidance of professors Nick Lauter and Alison Robertson. The title of Mercy’s defense seminar presented on Friday, July 13, 2018 was “Genomic analysis of quantitative disease resistance during maize-hemibiotrophic leaf blight pathogen inter-action.”

Mercy will be working as a Cotton Plant Health Scientist for Bayer based in St. Louis covering the southern states.

New members of the PLPM Family

In-Jeong Kang joined the Beattie lab from August 17, 2018 to June 15, 2019. In South Korea In-Jeong is a soybean pathologist at the National Institute of Crop Science of the Rural Development Administration. She has extensive experience with soybean diseases, as she makes annual trips through all of South Korea surveying fields and diagnosing outbreaks. As part of her work toward a PhD, she will be spending a year at ISU conducting a project on interactions between soybean diseases and soybean microbiomes. We welcome In-Jeong Kang to the PLPM family and we look forward on hearing more about her research.

The Beattie Lab hosts a visiting scholar from South Korea

Nick Lauter’s lab

In Jeong Kang and her son

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Summer ActivitiesSummer Breakfast Kick-off

New members of the PLPM FamilyMiller Lab hosts two visiting scholars

Dr. Allen Miller is hosting two visiting scholars this summer, Dr. Paul Kuria and Dr. Havva Ilbagi. Paul was awarded a Norman Borlaug fellowship by the Foreign Agri-cultural Service of the USDA to work in the Miller lab on maize lethal necrosis disease (MLND). Paul will spend 10 weeks in the lab investigating the synergy between maize chlorotic mottle virus and sugarcane mosaic virus, whose synergistic interaction causes MLND. Paul worked on cassava viruses in the esteemed Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis, MO for his Ph.D. Dr. Havva Ilbagi is a professor in Agriculture from the Namik Kemal University. Havva’s research focuses on the study of natural hosts of important cereal viruses in the Trakya region of Turkey. Havva will be performing RNA-seq to detect and identify differ-ent cereal viruses found in Turkey and the Iowa area during her time in the Miller lab.

Dr. Paul Kuria

Havva Ilbagi

On Monday, June 11, the Plant Pathology and Microbiology Graduate Stu-dent Organization (PLPM-GSO) organized a free breakfast event at the new Ad-vance Teaching and Research Building (ATRB) atrium. Current PLPM-GSO offi-cers Elizabeth Carino, Julie Aiza Mandap, and Gabriela Morel Gadea decided to follow the yearly tradition of a kick-off breakfast event to start the summer with a healthy meal. The students decided to organize this event in the new ATRB atrium to celebrate the beginning of the summer and the successful move of the depart-ment into its new home. During this event, faculty, staff, and students were able to discuss upcoming events, conferences, and experiences regarding the journey in the move from their respective buildings (Bessey Hall and Science I) to ATRB.

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Summer Activities2018 PLPM Canoe Race

First Place Team Champions

Kayaking top 3 from left to right

Second Place Team

Third Place Team

Over the years, PLPM graduate students heard many epic stories about previous canoe races in the department so this year’s PLPM-GSO officers decid-ed it was time to bring them back. With the support of enthusiastic faculty, stu-dents, and their families, the PLPM-GSO organized a Canoe Race with a Kayak relay on Friday, July 30, 2018 at Ada Hayden Heritage Park. Six teams competed for the canoe race trophy but only one came out victorious.

Awards were given as follow: Team awards: First Place and winner of the trophy: Iceberg: Gary Munkvold, Derrick Mayfield, Roger Wise, Nick Lauter Runner Up team Virus 2: Allen Miller, Bliss Kernodle, Ty, Sam Third Place Virus 1: Steven Whitham, Katerina Holan, Owen Whitham, Haiyue YuIndividual awards. These were given to the fastest times for either Kayaking or Canoe raceKayak Awards: Fastest Time Award: Nick Lauter, 6min 59 sec Fastest Time Award-Runner Up: W. Allen Miller, 7min 17 sec Fastest Time Award- Third Place: Mauricio Serrano, 7min 25 sec

Canoe Race Awards. Fastest Time Award: Justin Walley and Gaoyuan Song, 7min 43secFastest Time Award-Runner Up: Roger Wise and Derrick Mayfield, 8min 08sec

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Charles J. Gould Travel Awardees

The Charles J. Gould Graduate Student Travel Award in Plant Pathology is funded by an endow-ment gift from Mrs. Dorothy Gould in honor of her late husband Dr. Charles Gould, who received his Ph.D. from ISU in 1942. He spent his career studying diseases of horticultural plants.

The award is open to all graduate students in the department and is for travel that furthers their professional development. Recipients were selected based on need and the benefit to their professional development. This year, the following graduate students housed in our department received $300 to support their travel plans:

Jefferson Barizon; Nematode Identification Course Clemson University

Gabriela Gadea; International Congress of Plant Pathology (ICPP) Fernando Mauri-Marcos; International Congress of Plant Pathology (ICPP)

Olawole Olakunle; North Central Division of the American Phytopathological Society

Muhammad Raza; North Central Division of the American Phytopathological Society Valeria Zapata; International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB)

Congratulations to these students!

To learn more about the Charles J. Gould Graduate Student Travel Award, click here.

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Recent Publications, 2018Akintayo, A., Tylka, G., Singh, A.K., Singh, A., Ganapathysubramanian, B., and Sarkar, S.. 2018. A deep learning framework to discern and count microscopic nematode eggs. Scientific Reports 8:9145. DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-27272-w

Beattie, G.A., B.M. Hatfield, H. Dong and R.S. McGrane. 2018. Seeing the light: The roles of red- and blue-light sensing in plant microbes. Annual Review of Phytopathology (in press) https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-phyto-080417-045931

Beeman, A.Q. and Tylka, G.L.. 2018. Assessing the effects of Ilevo and Votivo seed treatments on reproduction, hatching, motility, and root penetration of the soybean cyst nematode, Heterodera glycines. Plant Disease 102:107-113. dx.doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-04-17-0585-RE

Bissonnette, K.M., C.C. Marett, M.P. Mullaney, G.D. Gebhart, P. Kyveryga, T.A. Mueller, and Tylka, G.L.. 2018. Effects of Clariva Complete Beans seed treatment on Heterodera glycines reproduction and soybean yield in Iowa. Plant Health Progress 19:1-8. doi.org/10.1094/PHP-08-17-0043-RS

Bird, G.W., Zasada, I.A., and Tylka, G.L. 2018. Role of population dynamics and damage thresholds in cyst nematode management. Pages 101-127 in R.N. Perry, M. Moens, and J.T. Jones, eds. Cyst Nematodes. CAB International. [Check the book details here]

Blok, V.C., Tylka, G.L., Smiley, R.W., de Jong, W.S., and Daub, M. 2018. Resistance breeding. Pages 174-214 in R.N. Perry, M. Moens, and J.T. Jones, eds. Cyst Nematodes. CAB International.

Clifton, E.H., Tylka, G.L., Gassmann, A.J., and Hodgson, E.W. 2018. Effects of host-plant resistance and seed treatments on soybean aphid (Aphis glycines Matsumura), soybean cyst nematode (Heterodera glycines Ichinohe), and soybean yield. Pest Management Science DOI: 10.1002/ps.4800

Gulya, T. J., Mathew, F., Harveson, R., Markell, S. and Block, C. 2018. Diseases of Sunflower. In: R. McGovern and W. Elmer. Handbook of Florists’ Crops Diseases. Handbook of Plant Disease Management. Springer Int. Publ. AG. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39670-5_27.

Harveson, R., Mathew, F., Gulya, T., Markell, S., Block, C., and Thompson, S. 2018. Sunflower stalk diseases initiated through leaf infections. Plant Health Progress. 19:82-91. Online: https://doi.org/10.1094/PHP-12-17-0083-DG.

Jensen, J.P., A.Q. Beeman, Z.L. Njus, U. Kalwa, Pandey, S., and Tylka, G.L. 2018. Movement and motion of soybean cyst nematode, Heterodera glycines, populations and individuals in response to abamectin. Phytopathology 108:885-891. dx.doi.org/10.1094/PHYTO-10-17-0339-R

Jensen, J.P., Kalwa, S., Pandey, S., and Tylka, G.L. 2018. Avicta and Clariva affect the biology of the soybean cyst nematode, Heterodera glycines. Plant Disease dx.doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-01-18-0086-RE

Liu, Q., G.A. Beattie, Saalau Rojas, E. and Gleason, M.L. 2018. Bacterial wilt symptoms are impacted by host age and involve net downward movement of Erwinia tracheiphila in muskmelon. European Journal of Plant Pathology 151:803-810. doi: 10.1007/s10658-018-1418-7

Donations to the PLPM DepartmentPlease consider making a gift to the Plant Pathology Development Fund. Your gift allows us to provide lecture series, academic excellence awards, travel stipends, small research grants and professional development opportunities to faculty and students.

To make a tax-deductible gift visit www.foundation.iastate.edu/ag. Mail your checks to the address below, or call the ISU Foundation at 515-294-4607. Please reference fund #0111622 to ensure that your donation is properly designat-ed.

Support from our alumni and friends is critical to the success of our gradu-ate program. Thank you for considering a demonstration of your support through a monetary gift.

ISU FoundationP.O. Box 868Ames, IA 50010-0868

We thank Esmail and Mary Zirakparvar for providing funding for the newsletter.

Please send all news submissions, questions, and comments to the newsletter editor Elizabeth Carino at ejcarino@iastate.edu

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