Project description:Although most known mycoviruses are asymptomatic or reduce the virulence of their host fungi, those that confer hypervirulence to entomopathogenic fungus still need to be explored. Here, we discovered and studied a novel mycovirus in Metarhizium flavoviride, isolated from Laodelphax striatellus. Based on molecular analysis, we tentatively designated the mycovirus as Metarhizium flavoviride partitivirus 1 (MfPV1), a novel species in genus Gammapartitivirus, family Partitiviridae. MfPV1 has two double-stranded (ds) RNAs as its genome, 1,775 and 1,575 bp in size respectively, encapsidated in isometric particles. When we transfected commercial strains of M. anisopliae and M. pingshaense with MfPV1, conidiation was significantly enhanced (t-test; P-value < 0. 01), and the significantly higher mortality rates of the larvae of Plutella xylostella and Spodoptera frugiperda, two important lepidopteran pests were found in virus-transfected strains (ANOVA; P-value < 0.05). Transcriptomic analysis showed that transcript levels of pathogenesis-related genes in MfPV1-infected M. anisopliae were obviously altered, suggesting increased production of metarhizium adhesin-like protein, hydrolyzed protein and destruxin synthetase. Further studies are required to elucidate the mechanism whereby MfPV1 enhances the expression of pathogenesis-related genes and virulence of Metarhizium to lepidopteran pests. This study presents experimental evidence that the transfection of other entomopathogenic fungal species with a mycovirus can confer significant hypervirulence and provides a good example that mycoviruses could be used as synergistic agent to enhance the biocontrol activity of entomopathogenic fungi.
Project description:This dataset is associated with a study on the horizontal transfer of transposable elements (TEs) mediated by "Starships", large mobile genetic elements found in fungi of the subphylum Pezizomycotina. Comparative genome analysis of two strains of the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae revealed the introduction and subsequent expansion of 43 TEs in one strain, totaling 508 perfect copies, following the arrival of a Starship carrying 73 TEs. This expansion led to extensive structural genome rearrangements, including the formation of a new chromosome and a loss of pathogenicity, likely linked to the relocalization and reduced expression of virulence-related genes, such as the subtilisin-like protease PR1C. Analysis of 618 published Starships showed that most carry TEs, with many exhibiting evidence of horizontal transfer and subsequent expansion. These findings highlight Starships as key vectors for TE horizontal transfer in fungi. The proteomic data submitted here aim to complement the investigation of functional changes associated with the observed genome reorganization.