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Ago1 Affects the Virulence of the Fungal Plant Pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici

In host-pathogen interactions RNA interference (RNAi) has emerged as a pivotal mechanism to modify both, the immune responses of the host as well as the pathogenicity and virulence of the pathogen. In addition, in some fungi RNAi is also known to affect chromosome biology via its effect on chromatin...

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Autores principales: Habig, Michael, Schotanus, Klaas, Hufnagel, Kim, Happel, Petra, Stukenbrock, Eva H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8303167/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34208898
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes12071011
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author Habig, Michael
Schotanus, Klaas
Hufnagel, Kim
Happel, Petra
Stukenbrock, Eva H.
author_facet Habig, Michael
Schotanus, Klaas
Hufnagel, Kim
Happel, Petra
Stukenbrock, Eva H.
author_sort Habig, Michael
collection PubMed
description In host-pathogen interactions RNA interference (RNAi) has emerged as a pivotal mechanism to modify both, the immune responses of the host as well as the pathogenicity and virulence of the pathogen. In addition, in some fungi RNAi is also known to affect chromosome biology via its effect on chromatin conformation. Previous studies reported no effect of the RNAi machinery on the virulence of the fungal plant pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici however the role of RNAi is still poorly understood in this species. Herein, we elucidate whether the RNAi machinery is conserved within the genus Zymoseptoria. Moreover, we conduct functional analyses of Argonaute and Dicer-like proteins and test if the RNAi machinery affects chromosome stability. We show that the RNAi machinery is conserved among closely related Zymoseptoria species while an exceptional pattern of allelic diversity was possibly caused by introgression. The deletion of Ago1 reduced the ability of the fungus to produce asexual propagules in planta in a quantitative matter. Chromosome stability of the accessory chromosome of Z. tritici was not prominently affected by the RNAi machinery. These results indicate, in contrast to previous finding, a role of the RNAi pathway during host infection, but not in the stability of accessory chromosomes in Z. tritici.
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spelling pubmed-83031672021-07-25 Ago1 Affects the Virulence of the Fungal Plant Pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici Habig, Michael Schotanus, Klaas Hufnagel, Kim Happel, Petra Stukenbrock, Eva H. Genes (Basel) Article In host-pathogen interactions RNA interference (RNAi) has emerged as a pivotal mechanism to modify both, the immune responses of the host as well as the pathogenicity and virulence of the pathogen. In addition, in some fungi RNAi is also known to affect chromosome biology via its effect on chromatin conformation. Previous studies reported no effect of the RNAi machinery on the virulence of the fungal plant pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici however the role of RNAi is still poorly understood in this species. Herein, we elucidate whether the RNAi machinery is conserved within the genus Zymoseptoria. Moreover, we conduct functional analyses of Argonaute and Dicer-like proteins and test if the RNAi machinery affects chromosome stability. We show that the RNAi machinery is conserved among closely related Zymoseptoria species while an exceptional pattern of allelic diversity was possibly caused by introgression. The deletion of Ago1 reduced the ability of the fungus to produce asexual propagules in planta in a quantitative matter. Chromosome stability of the accessory chromosome of Z. tritici was not prominently affected by the RNAi machinery. These results indicate, in contrast to previous finding, a role of the RNAi pathway during host infection, but not in the stability of accessory chromosomes in Z. tritici. MDPI 2021-06-30 /pmc/articles/PMC8303167/ /pubmed/34208898 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes12071011 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Habig, Michael
Schotanus, Klaas
Hufnagel, Kim
Happel, Petra
Stukenbrock, Eva H.
Ago1 Affects the Virulence of the Fungal Plant Pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici
title Ago1 Affects the Virulence of the Fungal Plant Pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici
title_full Ago1 Affects the Virulence of the Fungal Plant Pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici
title_fullStr Ago1 Affects the Virulence of the Fungal Plant Pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici
title_full_unstemmed Ago1 Affects the Virulence of the Fungal Plant Pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici
title_short Ago1 Affects the Virulence of the Fungal Plant Pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici
title_sort ago1 affects the virulence of the fungal plant pathogen zymoseptoria tritici
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8303167/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34208898
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes12071011
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