RNA‐Seq of in planta‐expressed Magnaporthe oryzae genes identifies MoSVP as a highly expressed gene required for pathogenicity at the initial stage of infection

The ascomycete fungus Magnaporthe oryzae is a hemibiotrophic pathogen that causes rice blast disease. Magnaporthe oryzae infects rice leaves, stems and panicles, and induces severe reductions in yield. Effector proteins secreted by M. oryzae in planta are thought to be involved its virulence activity. Here, using RNA‐sequencing (RNA‐Seq), we generated transcriptome data for M. oryzae isolate Ina168 during the initial stages of infection. We prepared samples from conidia (the inoculum) and from peeled epidermal cotyledon tissue of susceptible barley Hordeum vulgare ‘Nigrate’ at 12, 24, 36 and 48 hours post‐inoculation (hpi). We also generated a draft genome sequence of M. oryzae isolate Ina168 and used it as a reference for mapping the RNA‐Seq reads. Gene expression profiling across all stages of M. oryzae infection revealed 1728 putative secreted effector protein genes. We selected seven such genes that were strongly up‐regulated at 12 hpi and down‐regulated at 24 or 36 hpi and performed gene knockout analysis to determine their roles in pathogenicity. Knockout of MoSVP, encoding a small putative secreted protein with a hydrophobic surface binding protein A domain, resulted in a reduction in pathogenicity, suggesting that MoSVP is a novel virulence effector of M. oryzae.