A single laccase acts as a key component of environmental sensing in a broad host range fungal pathogen.

ABSTRACT: Secreted laccases are important enzymes on a broad ecological scale for their role in mediating plant-microbe interactions, but within ascomycete fungi these enzymes have been primarily associated with melanin biosynthesis. In this study, a putatively secreted laccase, Sslac2, was characterized from the broad-host-range plant pathogen Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, which is largely unpigmented and is not dependent on melanogenesis for plant infection. Gene knockouts of Sslac2 demonstrate wide ranging developmental phenotypes and are functionally non-pathogenic. These mutants also displayed indiscriminate growth behaviors and enhanced biomass formation, seemingly as a result of their inability to respond to canonical environmental growth cues, a phenomenon further confirmed through chemical stre

SUBMITTER: Westrick NM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10957995 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature