Genome-wide functional analysis reveals that infection-associated fungal autophagy is necessary for rice blast disease
Year: 2009
Type: article
Abstract: To cause rice blast disease, the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae elaborates specialized infection structures called appressoria, which use enormous turgor to rupture the tough outer cuticle of a rice leaf. Here, we report the generation of a set of 22 isogenic M. oryzae mutants each differing by a single component of the predicted autophagic machinery of the fungus. Analysis of this set of targeted deletion mutants demonstrated that loss of any of the 16 genes necessary for nonselective macroautophagy renders the fungus unable to cause rice blast disease, due to impairment of both conidial programmed cell death and appressorium maturation. In contrast, genes necessary only for selective forms of autophagy, such as pexophagy and mitophagy, are dispensable for appressorium-mediated plant infection. A genome-wide analysis therefore demonstrates the importance of infection-associated, nonselective autophagy for the establishment of rice blast disease.
Authors: Michael J. Kershaw, Nicholas J. Talbot
Institutions: University of Exeter, University of California San Diego
Language: English
Subfield: Cell Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
SDG: Zero hunger
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2138585051