Dutch elm disease: Toronto DNA-mapping team gets closer to a cure for tree-killing fungus

I REMEMBER THE LIVING CATHEDRALS LINING DETROIT'S SIDE STREETS FROM MY YOUTH...

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/03/18/dutch_elm_disease_toronto_dnamapping_team_gets_closer_to_a_cure_for_treekilling_fungus.html


Decades after Dutch elm disease spread to Canada, killing many of Toronto’s elm trees, researchers have mapped the genome of a fungus that causes it. Understanding the make-up of Ophiostoma ulmi could be a step toward halting future destruction, said Dr. Dinesh Christendat. The University of Toronto associate professor and molecular biologist is part of a team that spent two years mapping the 30-million-letter DNA chain.

“It opens up a multitude of opportunities for research around the world . . . now they can start understanding how it’s infecting these trees,” said Christendat, one of the authors of an article outlining the findings published last week in the journal BMC Genomics.

About 4.4 per cent of Toronto’s 10.2 million trees are elms, said Beth McEwen, the city’s manager of urban forest renewal. She estimated that, before the disease hit the city, elms were closer to 12 per cent of Toronto’s trees. The fungus, which often kills trees two years after infection, is thought to have originated in the Himalayas, hitting the Netherlands shortly after the First World War. In Canada, it was first detected in Quebec in 1945, after spreading from the United States. Eventually it would kill 80 per cent of Toronto’s 35,000 elms in a single year, according to federal research...elms in Toronto include the American, Slippery and Siberian varieties. The latter is resistant to the fungus, which interrupts nutrient distribution by blocking the flow of sap....Christendat said the idea of using the university’s sequencer to map the fungus genome was sparked over coffee with a colleague who focuses on forestry.

“Instead of trying to control the spread of the organism by restricting the movement of firewood and (infected) beetles, we could try to get rid of the fungus itself,” Christendat said, adding that research in Quebec is looking at a second variation of the Dutch elm disease fungus.

“It’s very important to protect (the elms) remaining.”