Elucidating the Obligate Nature and Biological Capacity of an Invasive Fungal Corn Pathogen
Tar spot is a devasting corn disease caused by the obligate fungal pathogen Phyllachora maydis. Since its initial identification in the United States in 2015, P. maydis has become an increasing threat to corn production. Despite this, P. maydis has remained largely understudied at the molecular leve...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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The American Phytopathological Society
2023-07-01
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| Series: | Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/10.1094/MPMI-10-22-0213-R |
| _version_ | 1828717027564453888 |
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| author | Joshua S. MacCready Emily M. Roggenkamp Kristi Gdanetz Martin I. Chilvers |
| author_facet | Joshua S. MacCready Emily M. Roggenkamp Kristi Gdanetz Martin I. Chilvers |
| author_sort | Joshua S. MacCready |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Tar spot is a devasting corn disease caused by the obligate fungal pathogen Phyllachora maydis. Since its initial identification in the United States in 2015, P. maydis has become an increasing threat to corn production. Despite this, P. maydis has remained largely understudied at the molecular level, due to difficulties surrounding its obligate lifestyle. Here, we generated a significantly improved P. maydis nuclear and mitochondrial genome, using a combination of long- and short-read technologies, and also provide the first transcriptomic analysis of primary tar spot lesions. Our results show that P. maydis is deficient in inorganic nitrogen utilization, is likely heterothallic, and encodes for significantly more protein-coding genes, including secreted enzymes and effectors, than previous determined. Furthermore, our expression analysis suggests that, following primary tar spot lesion formation, P. maydis might reroute carbon flux away from DNA replication and cell division pathways and towards pathways previously implicated in having significant roles in pathogenicity, such as autophagy and secretion. Together, our results identified several highly expressed unique secreted factors that likely contribute to host recognition and subsequent infection, greatly increasing our knowledge of the biological capacity of P. maydis, which have much broader implications for mitigating tar spot of corn. [Graphic: see text] Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T14:21:58Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-f68afb809ac8445d836a16c427ecc2ea |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 0894-0282 1943-7706 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T14:21:58Z |
| publishDate | 2023-07-01 |
| publisher | The American Phytopathological Society |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions |
| spelling | doaj.art-f68afb809ac8445d836a16c427ecc2ea2023-08-19T01:52:12ZengThe American Phytopathological SocietyMolecular Plant-Microbe Interactions0894-02821943-77062023-07-0136741142410.1094/MPMI-10-22-0213-RElucidating the Obligate Nature and Biological Capacity of an Invasive Fungal Corn PathogenJoshua S. MacCready0Emily M. Roggenkamp1Kristi Gdanetz2Martin I. Chilvers3Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, U.S.A.Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, U.S.A.Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, U.S.A.Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, U.S.A.Tar spot is a devasting corn disease caused by the obligate fungal pathogen Phyllachora maydis. Since its initial identification in the United States in 2015, P. maydis has become an increasing threat to corn production. Despite this, P. maydis has remained largely understudied at the molecular level, due to difficulties surrounding its obligate lifestyle. Here, we generated a significantly improved P. maydis nuclear and mitochondrial genome, using a combination of long- and short-read technologies, and also provide the first transcriptomic analysis of primary tar spot lesions. Our results show that P. maydis is deficient in inorganic nitrogen utilization, is likely heterothallic, and encodes for significantly more protein-coding genes, including secreted enzymes and effectors, than previous determined. Furthermore, our expression analysis suggests that, following primary tar spot lesion formation, P. maydis might reroute carbon flux away from DNA replication and cell division pathways and towards pathways previously implicated in having significant roles in pathogenicity, such as autophagy and secretion. Together, our results identified several highly expressed unique secreted factors that likely contribute to host recognition and subsequent infection, greatly increasing our knowledge of the biological capacity of P. maydis, which have much broader implications for mitigating tar spot of corn. [Graphic: see text] Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/10.1094/MPMI-10-22-0213-Robligate fungal pathogensPhyllachora maydistar spot |
| spellingShingle | Joshua S. MacCready Emily M. Roggenkamp Kristi Gdanetz Martin I. Chilvers Elucidating the Obligate Nature and Biological Capacity of an Invasive Fungal Corn Pathogen Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions obligate fungal pathogens Phyllachora maydis tar spot |
| title | Elucidating the Obligate Nature and Biological Capacity of an Invasive Fungal Corn Pathogen |
| title_full | Elucidating the Obligate Nature and Biological Capacity of an Invasive Fungal Corn Pathogen |
| title_fullStr | Elucidating the Obligate Nature and Biological Capacity of an Invasive Fungal Corn Pathogen |
| title_full_unstemmed | Elucidating the Obligate Nature and Biological Capacity of an Invasive Fungal Corn Pathogen |
| title_short | Elucidating the Obligate Nature and Biological Capacity of an Invasive Fungal Corn Pathogen |
| title_sort | elucidating the obligate nature and biological capacity of an invasive fungal corn pathogen |
| topic | obligate fungal pathogens Phyllachora maydis tar spot |
| url | https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/10.1094/MPMI-10-22-0213-R |
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