Diversification, loss, and virulence gains of the major effector AvrStb6 during continental spread of the wheat pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici.

ABSTRACT: Interactions between plant pathogens and their hosts are highly dynamic and mainly driven by pathogen effectors and plant receptors. Host-pathogen co-evolution can cause rapid diversification or loss of pathogen genes encoding host-exposed proteins. The molecular mechanisms that underpin such sequence dynamics remains poorly investigated at the scale of entire pathogen species. Here, we focus on AvrStb6, a major effector of the global wheat pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici, evolving in response to the cognate receptor Stb6, a resistance widely deployed in wheat. We comprehensively captured effector gene evolution by analyzing a global thousand-genome panel using reference-free sequence analyses. We found that AvrStb6 has diversified into 59 protein isoforms with a strong association to the pa

SUBMITTER: Sampaio AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11984979 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature