Address the growing urgency of fungal disease in crops

Stukenbrock, Eva; Gurr, Sarah

doi:10.1038/d41586-023-01465-4

COMMENT
02 May 2023

Address the growing urgency of fungal disease in crops

More political and public awareness of the plight of the world’s crops when it comes to fungal disease is crucial to stave off a major threat to global food security.

Eva Stukenbrock⁰ &
Sarah Gurr¹

Eva Stukenbrock
1. Eva Stukenbrock is a professor and head of the Environmental Genomics group at Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Germany, and fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR).
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Sarah Gurr
1. Sarah Gurr is a professor and the chair in Food Security at the University of Exeter, UK, a visiting professor at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands, and a fellow of the CIFAR.
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A dark cloud of dust from smut surrounds a machine harvesting crops on a sunny day — Clouds of dust caused by a fungus engulf a crop field. Credit: Darren Hauck/Reuters

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In October 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) published its first list of fungal pathogens that infect humans, and warned that certain increasingly abundant disease-causing fungal strains have acquired resistance to known antifungals¹. Even though more than 1.5 million people die each year from fungal diseases, the WHO’s list is the first global effort to systematically prioritize surveillance, research and development, and public-health interventions for fungal pathogens.

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Nature 617, 31-34 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-01465-4

References

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Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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[1] Fisher, M. C. & Denning, D. W. Nature Rev. Microbiol. 21, 211–212 (2023).
Article PubMed Google Scholar

[2] Steinberg, G. & Gurr, S. J. Fungal Genet. Biol. 144, 103476 (2020).
Article PubMed Google Scholar

[3] Fisher, M. C. et al. Nature 484, 186–194 (2012).
Article PubMed Google Scholar

[4] Bebber, D. P., Ramotowski, M. A. T. & Gurr, S. J. Nature Clim. Change 3, 985–988 (2013).
Article Google Scholar

[5] Chaloner, T. M., Gurr, S. J. & Bebber, D. P. Nature Clim. Change 11, 710–715 (2021).
Article Google Scholar

[6] Savary, S. et al. Nature Ecol. Evol. 3, 430–439 (2019).
Article PubMed Google Scholar

[7] Fones, H. & Gurr, S. Fungal Genet. Biol. 79, 3–7 (2015).
Article PubMed Google Scholar

[8] Brown, J. K. M. & Hovmøller, M. S. Science 297, 537–541 (2002).
Article PubMed Google Scholar

[9] Möller, M. & Stukenbrock, E. H. Nature Rev. Microbiol. 15, 756–771 (2017).
Article PubMed Google Scholar

[10] Oliver, R. P. & Hewitt, H. G. Fungicides in Crop Protection (CABI, 2014).
Google Scholar

[11] Karasov, T. L., Chae, E., Herman, J. J. & Bergelson, J. Plant Cell 29, 666–680 (2017).
Article PubMed Google Scholar

[12] Mesny, F. et al. Nature Commun. 12, 7227 (2021).
Article PubMed Google Scholar

[13] Garcia-Solache, M. A. & Casadevall, A. mBio 1, e00061-10 (2010).
Article PubMed Google Scholar

[14] Steinberg, G. et al. Nature Commun. 11, 1608 (2020).
Article PubMed Google Scholar

[15] Cannon, S. et al. PLoS Pathog. 18, e1010860 (2022).
Article PubMed Google Scholar

[16] Orellana-Torrejon, C., Vidal, T., Saint-Jean, S. & Suffert, F. Plant Pathol. 71, 1537–1549 (2022).
Article Google Scholar

[17] Balesdent, M.-H. et al. Phytopathology 112, 2126–2137 (2022).
Article Google Scholar

[18] Lahlali, R. et al. Microorganisms 10, 596 (2022).
Article PubMed Google Scholar

[19] Weiberg, A. et al. Science 342, 118–123 (2013).
Article PubMed Google Scholar

[20] Wang, M. et al. Nature Plants 2, 16151 (2016).
Article PubMed Google Scholar

[21] Wang, M. & Jin, H. Trends Microbiol. 25, 4–6 (2017).
Article PubMed Google Scholar

[22] Niu, D. et al. Curr. Opin. Biotechnol. 70, 204–212 (2021).
Article PubMed Google Scholar

Address the growing urgency of fungal disease in crops

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References

Competing Interests

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