Project description:The hemibiotrophic fungus Magnaporthe oryzae produces specialized biotrophic invasive hyphae (IH) that alter membrane structure and defense responses in invaded rice cells. IH successively invade live neighbor cells, apparently through plasmodesmata. Understanding fungal and rice genes that contribute to biotrophic invasion has been a challenge because so few plant cells have encountered IH at the earliest infection stages. Using a rice sheath inoculation method, we successfully enriched for infected tissue RNA that contained ~20% fungal RNA at a point when most IH were still growing in first-invaded rice cells. The RNAs were analyzed using the whole-genome M. oryzae oligoarray and a rice oligoarray. Rice genes that were induced >50-fold during infection were enriched for genes involved in transferring information from sensors to cellular responses. Fungal genes that were induced >50-fold in IH included the PWL2 avirulence gene and genes encoding hypothetical secreted proteins. The IH-specific secreted proteins are candidate effectors, proteins that the fungus secretes into live host cells to control cellular processes. Gene knock-out analyses of three putative effector genes failed to show major effects on pathogenicity. Details of the blast interaction transcriptome will provide insights on the mechanisms of biotrophic plant disease. Keywords: Disease state analysis
Project description:The hemibiotrophic fungus Magnaporthe oryzae produces specialized biotrophic invasive hyphae (IH) that alter membrane structure and defense responses in invaded rice cells. IH successively invade live neighbor cells, apparently through plasmodesmata. Understanding fungal and rice genes that contribute to biotrophic invasion has been a challenge because so few plant cells have encountered IH at the earliest infection stages. Using a rice sheath inoculation method, we successfully enriched for infected tissue RNA that contained ~20% fungal RNA at a point when most IH were still growing in first-invaded rice cells. The RNAs were analyzed using the whole-genome M. oryzae oligoarray and a rice oligoarray. Rice genes that were induced >50-fold during infection were enriched for genes involved in transferring information from sensors to cellular responses. Fungal genes that were induced >50-fold in IH included the PWL2 avirulence gene and genes encoding hypothetical secreted proteins. The IH-specific secreted proteins are candidate effectors, proteins that the fungus secretes into live host cells to control cellular processes. Gene knock-out analyses of three putative effector genes failed to show major effects on pathogenicity. Details of the blast interaction transcriptome will provide insights on the mechanisms of biotrophic plant disease. Keywords: Disease state analysis
Project description:Rice blast is a pervasive and devastating disease that threatens rice production across the world. In spite of its importance to global food security, however, the underlying biology of plant infection by the blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae remains poorly understood. In particular, it is unclear how the fungus elaborates a specialised infection cell, the appressorium, in response to surface signals from the rice leaf. Here, we report the identification of a network of temporally co-regulated transcription factors that act downstream of the Pmk1 mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway to regulate gene expression during appressorium-mediated plant infection. We have functionally characterised this network of transcription factors and demonstrated the operation of a hierarchical transcriptional control system. We show that this tiered regulatory mechanism involves Pmk1-dependent phosphorylation of the Hox7 homeobox transcription factor, which represses hyphal-associated gene expression and simultaneously induces major physiological changes required for appressorium development, including cell cycle arrest, autophagic cell death, turgor generation and melanin biosynthesis. Mst12 then regulates gene functions involved in septin-dependent cytoskeletal re-organisation, polarised exocytosis and effector gene expression necessary for plant tissue invasion.4929
Project description:The hemibiotrophic fungus Magnaporthe oryzae produces specialized biotrophic invasive hyphae (IH) that alter membrane structure and defense responses in invaded rice cells. IH successively invade live neighbor cells, apparently through plasmodesmata. Understanding fungal and rice genes that contribute to biotrophic invasion has been a challenge because so few plant cells have encountered IH at the earliest infection stages. Using a rice sheath inoculation method, we successfully enriched for infected tissue RNA that contained ~20% fungal RNA at a point when most IH were still growing in first-invaded rice cells. The RNAs were analyzed using the whole-genome M. oryzae oligoarray and a rice oligoarray. Rice genes that were induced >50-fold during infection were enriched for genes involved in transferring information from sensors to cellular responses. Fungal genes that were induced >50-fold in IH included the PWL2 avirulence gene and genes encoding hypothetical secreted proteins. The IH-specific secreted proteins are candidate effectors, proteins that the fungus secretes into live host cells to control cellular processes. Gene knock-out analyses of three putative effector genes failed to show major effects on pathogenicity. Details of the blast interaction transcriptome will provide insights on the mechanisms of biotrophic plant disease. Keywords: Disease state analysis Our goal was to compare expression in biotrophic IH to expression in mycelium grown in nutrient medium, and to compare expression in infected rice sheath to expression in mock inoculated rice. Using version 2 of the fungal whole genome microarray (Agilent Technologies), we analyzed samples from three biological replicates of rice leaf sheath at 36 hours after inoculation with the rice blast fungus M. oryzae. The same samples were used with the Agilent rice microarray (see series GSE8518). To estimate the ratio of fungal to rice RNAs in the infected sheaths, we compared RT-PCR amplification of fungal genes in infected tissue to amplification in standards produced by mixing known ratios of pure mycelial RNA with mock-inoculated rice RNA. Using this assay, fungal RNA content in infected tissues were approximately 20% of the total RNAs. We prepared control mixtures by pooling 20% mycelial RNA and 80% RNA from mock-inoculated rice sheath. Complementary RNAs from infected tissues were labeled with Cy3 or Cy5 and hybridized together with the control mixture RNA labeled with the other dye. Three independent biological replications were performed, with separate hybridizations for 2 technical replications and corresponding dye swap experiments. Data were analyzed by Rosetta Resolver® and showed a correlation of over 80% between biological replications.