Michael Thon, Ph.D.

Profesor Titular (Professor), Department of Microbiology and Genetics

email: mthon@usal.es

Professional Preparation:

  • Profesor Titular (tenured professor)  University of Salamanca, Center Hispano-Luso de Investigaciones Agrarias (CIALE), Dept. Microbiology and Genetics.
  • Ramón y Cajal Researcher, University of Salamanca, Center Hispano-Luso de Investigaciones Agrarias (CIALE), Dept. Microbiology and Genetics, April 2007 – April 2012
  • Assistant Professor, Texas A&M University, Dept. of Plant Pathology & Microbiology, and Dept. of Computer Science. May 2004 – April 2007
  • Postdoctorate, North Carolina State University, 2001-2004.
  • Assistant Research Professor, University of Kentucky. Apr. 2000 – Aug. 2001.
  • Postdoctorate, University of Kentucky 1998-2000.
  • Ph.D. Plant Pathology, May 1998. The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.
  • M.S. Botany, Aug. 1993, Eastern Illinois University.
  • B.S. Botany (minor, Zoology), May 1991, Eastern Illinois University.

Publications:

  • 1. Jaramillo VD, Sukno SA, Thon MR: Identification of horizontally transferred genes in the genus Colletotrichum reveals a steady tempo of bacterial to fungal gene transfer. BMC Genomics 2015, 16:2.
    2. Sukno SA, Sanz-Martín JM, González-Fuente M, Hiltbrunner J, Thon MR: First Report of Anthracnose Stalk Rot of Maize Caused by Colletotrichum graminicola in Switzerland. Plant Disease 2014, 98:694–694.
    3. Rech GE, Sanz-Martín JM, Anisimova M, Sukno SA, Thon MR: Natural selection on coding and non-coding DNA sequences is associated with virulence genes in a plant pathogenic fungus. Genome Biol Evol 2014:evu192.
    4. Krijger J-J, Thon MR, Deising HB, Wirsel SG: Compositions of fungal secretomes indicate a greater impact of phylogenetic history than lifestyle adaptation. BMC Genomics 2014, 15:722.
    5. Baroncelli R, Sreenivasaprasad S, Thon MR, Sukno SA: First report of apple bitter rot caused by Colletotrichum godetiae in the UK. Plant Disease 2014:140218151808002.
    6. Baroncelli R, Sreenivasaprasad S, Sukno SA, Thon MR, Holub E: Draft Genome Sequence of Colletotrichum acutatum sensu lato (Colletotrichum fioriniae). Genome Announc 2014, 2:e00112–14.
    7. Baroncelli R, Sanz-Martín JM, Rech GE, Sukno SA, Thon MR: Draft Genome Sequence of Colletotrichum sublineola: a destructive pathogen of cultivated sorghum. Genome Announcements 2014, 2:e00540–14.
    8. Baroncelli R, Sreenivasaprasad S, Lane CR, Thon MR, Sukno SA: First report of Colletotrichum acutatum sensu lato ( Colletotrichum godetiae ) causing anthracnose on grapevine ( Vitis vinifera ) in the United Kingdom. New Disease Reports 2014, 29:26.
    9. Sandoval-Espinola WJ, Makwana ST, Chinn MS, Thon MR, Azcarate-Peril MA, Bruno-Barcena JM: Comparative phenotypic analysis and genome sequence of Clostridium beijerinckii SA-1, an offspring of NCIMB 8052. Microbiology 2013, 159:2558–2570.
    10. Armijos Jaramillo VD, Vargas WA, Sukno SA, Thon MR: New insights into the evolution and structure of Colletotrichum plant-like subtilisins (CPLSs). Communicative & Integrative Biology 2013, 6:e25727.
    11. Armijos Jaramillo VD, Vargas W, Sukno SA, Thon MR: Horizontal transfer of a subtilisin gene from plants into an ancestor of the plant pathogenic fungal genus Colletotrichum. PloS one 2013, 8:e59078.
    12. Alkan N, Meng X, Friedlander G, Reuveni E, Sukno S, Sherman A, Thon M, Fluhr R, Prusky D: Global aspects of pacC regulation of pathogenicity genes in Colletotrichum gloeosporioides as revealed by transcriptome analysis. Mol Plant Microbe Interact 2013, 26:1345–1358.
    13. Yi G, Thon MR, Sze S-H: Supervised protein family classification and new family construction. Journal of Computational Biology 2012, 19:957–967.
    14. Vargas WA, Martín JMS, Rech GE, Rivera LP, Benito EP, Díaz-Mínguez JM, Thon MR, Sukno SA: Plant defense mechanisms are activated during biotrophic and necrotrophic development of Colletotrichum graminicola in maize. Plant Physiol 2012, 158:1342–1358.
    15. Rech GE, Vargas WA, Sukno SA, Thon MR: Identification of positive selection in disease response genes within members of the Poaceae. Plant Signaling & Behavior 2012, 7:1–9.
    16. O’Connell* RJ, Thon* MR, Hacquard S, Ver Loren Van Themaat E, Amyotte S, Kleemann J, Torres-Quintero M, Damm U, Buite E, Epstein, L., M., Alkan N, Altmüller J, Alvarado-Balderrama L, Bauser C, Becker C, Birren BW, Chen Z, Crouch JA, Duvick J, Farman M, Gan P, Heiman D, Henrissat B, Howard RJ, Kabbage M, Koch C, Kubo Y, Law A, Lebrun MH, Lee YH, et al.: Life-style transitions in plant pathogenic Colletotrichum fungi defined by genome and transcriptome analyses. Nature Genetics 2012, 44:1060–1065 *co–first authors.
    17. Miyara I, Shnaiderman C, Meng X, Vargas WA, Díaz-Mínguez JM, Thon M, Sherman A, Prusky DB: Role of Nitrogen-Metabolism Genes Expressed during Pathogenicity of the Alkalinizing Colletotrichum gloeosporioides and their Differential Expression in Acidifying Pathogens. Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions 2012(ja).
    18. Kubicek CP, Herrera-Estrella A, Seidl-Seiboth V, Martinez DA, Druzhinina IS, Thon M, Zeilinger S, Casas-Flores S, Horwitz BA, Mukherjee PK, Mukherjee M, Kredics L, Alcaraz LD, Aerts A, Antal Z, Atanasova L, Cervantes-Badillo MG, Challacombe J, Chertkov O, McCluskey K, Coulpier F, Deshpande N, von Döhren H, Ebbole DJ, Esquivel-Naranjo EU, Fekete E, Flipphi M, Glaser F, Gómez-Rodríguez EY, Gruber S, et al.: Comparative genome sequence analysis underscores mycoparasitism as the ancestral life style of Trichoderma. Genome Biology 2011, 12:R40.
    19. Yang Q, Yi G, Zhang F, Thon MR, Sze SH: Identifying gene clusters within localized regions in multiple genomes. Journal of Computational Biology 2010, 17:657–668.
    20. Jung J, Yi G, Sukno SA, Thon MR: PoGO: Prediction of Gene Ontology terms for fungal proteins. BMC bioinformatics 2010, 11:215.
    21. Sukno SA, García VM, Shaw BD, Thon MR: Root infection and systemic colonization of maize by Colletotrichum graminicola. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 2008, 74:823–832.
    22. Yi G, Sze S-H, Thon MR: Identifying Clusters of Functionally Related Genes in Genomes. Bioinformatics 2007, 23:1053–1060.
    23. Sukno SA, McCuiston J, Wong MY, Wang X, Thon MR, Hussey R, Baum T, Davis E: Quantitative detection of double-stranded RNA-mediated gene silencing of parasitism genes in Heterodera glycines. Journal of nematology 2007, 39:145.
    24. Meng Y, Patel G, Heist M, Betts MF, Tucker SL, Galadima N, Donofrio NM, Brown D, Mitchell TK, Li L, others: A systematic analysis of T-DNA insertion events in Magnaporthe oryzae. Fungal Genetics and Biology 2007, 44:1050–1064.
    25. Thon MR, Pan H, Diener S, Papalas J, Taro A, Mitchell TK, Dean RA: The role of transposable element clusters in genome evolution and loss of synteny in the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae. Genome Biology 2006, 7:R16.
    26. Jung J, Thon MR: Automatic annotation of protein functional class from sparse and imbalanced data sets. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2006, 4316:65–77.
    27. Cramer RA, LA Rota CM, Cho Y, Thon M, Craven KD, Knudson DL, Mitchell TK, Lawrence CB: Bioinformatic analysis of expressed sequence tags derived from a compatible Alternaria brassicicola-Brassica oleracea interaction. Mol Plant Pathol 2006, 7:113–124.
    28. Kulkarni RD, Thon MR, Pan H, Dean RA: Novel G-protein-coupled receptor-like proteins in the plant pathogenic fungus Magnaporthe grisea. Genome Biol 2005, 6:R24.
    29. Dean RA, Talbot NJ, Ebbole DJ, Farman ML, Mitchell TK, Orbach MJ, Thon M, Kulkarni R, Xu J-R, Pan H, Read ND, Lee Y-H, Carbone I, Brown D, Oh YY, Donofrio N, Jeong JS, Soanes DM, Djonovic S, Kolomiets E, Rehmeyer C, Li W, Harding M, Kim S, Lebrun M-H, Bohnert H, Coughlan S, Butler J, Calvo S, Ma L-J, et al.: The genome sequence of the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe grisea. Nature 2005, 434:980–986.
    30. Thon MR, Martin SL, Goff S, Wing RA, Dean RA: BAC end sequences and a physical map reveal transposable element content and clustering patterns in the genome of Magnaporthe grisea. Fungal genetics and biology 2004, 41:657–666.
    31. Ebbole DJ, Jin Y, Thon M, Pan H, Bhattarai E, Thomas T, Dean R: Gene discovery and gene expression in the rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe grisea: analysis of expressed sequence tags. Mol Plant Microbe Interact 2004, 17:1337–47.
    32. Mitchell TK, Thon MR, Jeong JS, Brown D, Deng JX, Dean R a.: The rice blast pathosystem as a case study for the development of new tools and raw materials for genome analysis of fungal plant pathogens. New Phytologist 2003, 159:53–61.
    33. Thon M, Nuckles E, Takach J, Vaillancourt L: CPR1: A gene encoding a putative signal peptidase that functions in pathogenicity of Colletotrichum graminicola to maize. Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions 2002, 15:120–128.
    34. Thon M, Nuckles E, Vaillancourt L: Restriction enzyme-mediated integration used to produce pathogenicity mutants of Colletotrichum graminicola. Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions 2000, 13:1356–1365.
    35. Thon MR, Royse DJ: Partial beta-tubulin gene sequences for evolutionary studies in the Basidiomycotina. Mycologia 1999, 91:468–474.
    36. Thon MR, Royse DJ: Evidence for two Iindependent lineages of shiitake of the americas (Lentinula boryana) based on rDNA and beta-tubulin gene sequences. Molecular phylogenetics and evolution 1999, 13:520–524.
    37. Royse DJ, Thon MR: Phylogeny of Shiitake of the Americas (Lentinula boryana) Inferred from rDNA Sequences. 1999.
    38. Thon MR: Evolutionary relationships among members of the genus Lentinula and other selected Basidiomycetes based on beta-tubulin and ribosomal DNA sequences. Pennsylvania State University; 1998.
    39. Ospina-Giraldo M, Royse D, Thon M, Chen X, Romaine C: Phylogenetic relationships of Trichoderma harzianum causing mushroom green mold in Europe and North America to other species of Trichoderma from world-wide sources. Mycologia 1998:76–81.
    40. Nicholson M, Thon M, Royse D: A Short Ribosomal DNA Sequence from a 115-Year-Old Lentinula guarapìensìs Herbarium Specimen. Mushroom biology and mushroom products: proceedings of the 2nd International Conference, June 9-12, 1996, University Park, Pennsylvania 1996:67.
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