Project description:Soilborne fungal pathogens cause devastating yield losses, are highly persistent and difficult to control. To culminate infection, these organisms must cope with limited availability of iron. Here we show that the bZIP protein HapX functions as a key regulator of iron homeostasis and virulence in the vascular wilt fungus Fusarium oxysporum. Deletion of hapX does not affect iron uptake, but causes derepression of genes involved in iron-consuming pathways, leading to impaired growth under iron-depleted conditions. F. oxysporum strains lacking HapX are reduced in their capacity to invade and kill tomato plants and immunodepressed mice. The virulence defect of M-NM-^ThapX on tomato plants is exacerbated by coinoculation of roots with a biocontrol strain of Pseudomonas putida, but not with a siderophore-deficient mutant, indicating that HapX contributes to iron competition of F. oxysporum in the tomato rhizosphere. These results establish a conserved role for HapX-mediated iron homeostasis in fungal infection of plants and mammals. Iron dependent gene expression in Fusarium oxysporum wt and M-NM-^ThapX mutant was measured 1 hour after shifting the mycelia to minimal medium with or without 50 M-NM-<M Fe2(SO4)3. Three independent experiments were performed.
Project description:Soilborne fungal pathogens cause devastating yield losses, are highly persistent and difficult to control. To culminate infection, these organisms must cope with limited availability of iron. Here we show that the bZIP protein HapX functions as a key regulator of iron homeostasis and virulence in the vascular wilt fungus Fusarium oxysporum. Deletion of hapX does not affect iron uptake, but causes derepression of genes involved in iron-consuming pathways, leading to impaired growth under iron-depleted conditions. F. oxysporum strains lacking HapX are reduced in their capacity to invade and kill tomato plants and immunodepressed mice. The virulence defect of ΔhapX on tomato plants is exacerbated by coinoculation of roots with a biocontrol strain of Pseudomonas putida, but not with a siderophore-deficient mutant, indicating that HapX contributes to iron competition of F. oxysporum in the tomato rhizosphere. These results establish a conserved role for HapX-mediated iron homeostasis in fungal infection of plants and mammals.
Project description:The colonization of Capsicum annuum roots by Fusarium oxysporum Fo47 induces resistance responses on the plant. Fo47 is a non-pathogenic strain of Fusarium oxysporum. Fo47 colonizes only the most outer layers of the root surface but it does not colonize inner tissues. Pre-treatment of roots with Fo47 reduces the symptom development produced by later pathogen inoculation. The expression of genes in distal tissues was determined by microarray analysis of stems of Fo47-treated plants. Capsicum annuum samples were analyzed using Affymetrix chips of the close-related species Solanum lycopersicum.
Project description:Fusarium oxysporum causes Fusarium wilt syndrome in more than 120 different plant hosts, including globally important crops such as tomato, cotton, banana, melon, etc. F. oxysporum shows high host specificity in over 150 formae speciales and have been ranked in the top 10 plant fungal pathogens. Although three PMTs encoded by the pmt1, pmt2, and pmt4 are annotated in the genome of F. oxysporum, their functions have not been reported. As O-mannosylation is not found in plants, a comprehensive understanding of PMTs in F. oxysporum becomes attractive for the development of new strategy against Fusarium wilt. In order to understand the molecular mechanism of the differential functions of three PMTs, a comparative O-glycoproteome analysis of the pmt mutants were carried out.
Project description:Fungal effectors play important roles in inciting disease development on host plants. We identified an effector (Secreted in Xylem4, SIX4) in an Arabidopsis infecting isolate (Fo5176) of the root-infecting fungal pathogen Fusarium oxysporum and demonstrated this effector is required for full virulence. To explore the role of Fo5176_SIX4 we use whole transcriptome profiling of root tissues from plants overexpressing this effector (35sSIX4) versus wild-type (Col-0) plants after F. oxysporum infection. We grew both WT and 35sSIX4 plants for four weeks in soil. After four weeks the plants were infected with Fusarium oxyporum isolate Fo5176, trays covered with a plastic dome and incubated at 28C. There were four independent replicates of each treatment and each replicate contained root tissue from 20 plants. Each replicate (8 in total) was harvested 4 days post inoculation and the resulting RNA was used for hybridization to an Affymetrix ATH1 chip.
Project description:We performed RNA-seq analysis of the root transcriptional response to Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. vasinfectum (FOV) race 4 (FOV4) infection in Gossypium barbadense, also known as Pima cotton. Susceptible Gossypium barbadense inbred lines Pima S-7 (PI 560140) and Pima 3-79 susceptible to Fusarium wilt [Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. vasinfectum (FOV)] race 4 (FOV4), and Pima S-6 (PI 608346) which is resistant to FOV4 infection, were used for the preparation of cDNA libraries and further RNA-seq analyses. An isolate of FOV4 (FOV CA-14) from a naturally infested field in Fresno County in the San Joaquin Valley, California was used in this study.
Project description:Fungal effectors play important roles in inciting disease development on host plants. We identified an effector (Secreted in Xylem4, SIX4) in an Arabidopsis infecting isolate (Fo5176) of the root-infecting fungal pathogen Fusarium oxysporum and demonstrated this effector is required for full virulence. To explore the role of Fo5176_SIX4 we use whole transcriptome profiling of root tissues from plants overexpressing this effector (35sSIX4) versus wild-type (Col-0) plants after F. oxysporum infection. Published in DOI:10.1007/978-3-319-42319-7_4. Belowground Defence Strategies in Plants.
Project description:The influence of during colonization by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. Lycopersici secreted effector proteins on the proteome of the xylem sap of tomato plants was investigated using a label-free quantitative proteomics approach. A comparison was made between plants inoculated with either a mock control, a non-effector knockout control, Fusarium oxysporum Fol007 wildtype and four Fol007 single effector protein knockout strains. Specific effects on the relative abundance of certain proteins of the xylem sap occurred for the different knockout strains next to a core set of 24 differentially accumulated proteins which may provide insights into the mechanisms of promoting infection for each of the tested effector proteins.
Project description:In the fungi Fusarium fujikuroi and Fusarium oxysporum, the induction of carotenogenesis by light and its deregulation in carS mutants, affected in a protein of the RING-finger family, are achieved on transcription of the structural genes of the pathway, some of them organized in a cluster. We have carried out global RNAseq transcriptomics analyses to investigate the relationship between the regulatory effects of light and the carS mutation. Either illumination or the absence of a functional carS gene exert wide effects on the transcriptome of F. fujikuroi, with a predominance of activated over repressed genes, and a greater functional diversity in the case of genes induced by light. The number of the latter decreases drastically in the carS mutant, indicating that the deregulation produced by the carS mutation affects the light response of many genes. In addition, light and CarS strongly influence the expression of some genes associated with stress responses. The effects of light and carS mutation on the F. oxysporum transcriptome were partially coincident with those in F. fujikuroi, indicating conservation of the objectives of their regulatory mechanisms. In conclusion, the CarS RING finger protein down-regulates many genes whose expression is up-regulated by light in the wild-type strains of the two Fusarium species investigated, indicating regulatory connections between the control by light and by the CarS protein.