Karin Münch

TL;DR: The discovery of the secreted protein gene clusters and the functional demonstration of their decisive role in the infection process illuminate previously unknown mechanisms of pathogenicity operating in biotrophic fungi.

TL;DR: A group of papers analyzes pathogen genomes to find the roots of virulence, opportunism, and life-style determinants and demonstrates a role in virulence for four previously unknown diversity regions.

TL;DR: The 7.67-Mbp genome of Malassezia sympodialis is presented and evidence is presented that M. sympodials may have the capacity to undergo sexual reproduction and present a model for a pseudobipolar mating system that allows limited recombination between two linked MAT loci.

TL;DR: To unravel the program inducing filaments and appressoria in the biotrophic smut fungus Ustilago maydis, cells are exposed to a hydrophobic surface and the cutin monomer 16-hydroxy hexadecanoic acid and specific effects on two transcription factors that redirect the transcriptional regulatory network towards appressorium formation and plant penetration are demonstrated.

TL;DR: The establishment of the FLP/FRT system in a plant pathogenic fungus paves the way for analyzing multigene families with redundant functions.