Comparative studies of fungal pathogeneses in two hemibiotrophs: Magnaporthe grisea and Colletotrichum gloeosporioides
Authors: Xu Jin-Rong , Sharon Amir 
Published: March 2022

Plant pathogenic fungi have various life styles and different plant infection strategies. Hemibiotrophs like Magnaporthe grisea and Colletotrichum species develop specialized structures during plant infection. The goal of this study was to identify, characterize, and compare genes required for plant infection in M. grisea and C. gloeosporioides. Specific objectives are to: 1) further characterize genes identified in the preliminary studies of C. gloeosporioides and M. grisea;2) identify and characterize additional fungal genes tagged by GFP; and 3) identify in planta growth and appressorium-specific genes by subtractive hybridization and transcript profiling by the LongSAGE method. In this study, the PI and Co-PI collaborated closely on studies in M. grisea and C. gloeosporioides. In M. grisea, REMI and ATMT were used to transform the wildtype with promoter-less EGFP constructs. A total of 28 mutants defective in different plant infection processes or expressing EGFP during plant infection were identified. Genes disrupted in five selected mutants have been identified, including MG03295 that encodes a putative Rho GTPase. In transformant L1320, the transforming vector was inserted in the MIRI gene that encodes a nuclear protein. The expression of MIRI was highly induced during infection. Deletion and site-directed mutagenesis analyses were used to identify the promoter regions and elements that were essential for induced in planta expression of MIRI. This was the first detailed characterization of the promoter of an in planta gene in M. grisea and the MIRI promoter can be used to monitor infectious growth. In addition, the Agilent whole-genome array of M. grisea was used for microarray analyses with RNA samples from appressoria formed by the wild-type shain and the pmkl and mstl2 mutants. Over 200 genes were downregulated in the mst I 2 and pmkl mutants. Some of them are putative transcription factors that may regulate appressorium formation and infectious hyphal growth. In C. gloeosporioides, various REMI mutants showing different pathogenic behavior were identified and characterized. Mutants N3736 had a single insertion and was hyper-virulent. The gene disrupted in mutant3736 (named CgFMOI) encodes a FAD-dependent monooxygenase. Expression analyses linked the expression of the CgFMOI gene with the necrotrophic phase of fungal infection, and also suggest that expression of CgFMOl is unnecessary for the first stages of infection and for biotrophy establishment. All CgFMOl-silenced mutants had reduced virulence. In REMI mutant N159, the tagged gene encodes a putative copper transporter that is homologue of S. cerevisiae CTR2. In yeast, Ctr2 is a vacuolar transporter for moving copper from the vacuole to the cytoplasm. The gene was therefore termed CgCTR2. In addition to characterization of CgCTR2, we also conducted comparative analyses in M. grisea. The M. grisea CgCTR-2 homolog was isolated, knockout strains were generated and characterized and the M. grisea was used to complement the Nl 59 C. gloeosporioides mutant. Overall, we have accomplished most of proposed experiments and are in the process of organizing and publishing other data generated in this project. For objective 3, we used the microarray analysis approach. Several genes identified in this study are novel fungal virulence factors. They have the potential to be used as targets for developing more specific or effective fungicides. In the long run, comparative studies of fungal genes, such as our CgCTR2 work, may lead to better disease control strategies.