Nicole Rössel

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: 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: Comparison of Ustilago maydis and Sporisorium reilianum, two smut fungi that parasitize maize, reveals that their Tin2 effectors target different protein kinase paralogues and activity of an ancestral allele indicates Tin2 neofunctionalization in U. maydis.

TL;DR: Sta1 is a novel kind of effector, which needs to modify the hyphal cell wall to allow hyphae to be accommodated in tissue next to the vascular bundles, suggesting that Sta1 alters the structure of the fungal cell wall.