Virulent strains of Zymoseptoria tritici suppress the host immune response and facilitate the success of avirulent strains in mixed infections.

ABSTRACT: Plants interact with a plethora of pathogenic microorganisms in nature. Pathogen-plant interaction experiments focus mainly on single-strain infections, typically ignoring the complexity of multi-strain infections even though mixed infections are common and critical for the infection outcome. The wheat pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici forms highly diverse fungal populations in which several pathogen strains often colonize the same leaf. Despite the importance of mixed infections, the mechanisms governing interactions between a mixture of pathogen strains within a plant host remain largely unexplored. Here we demonstrate that avirulent pathogen strains benefit from being in mixed infections with virulent strains. We show that virulent strains suppress the wheat immune response, allowing avirul

SUBMITTER: Bernasconi A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10721197 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature