Cargando…
Chitin Deacetylase, a Novel Target for the Design of Agricultural Fungicides
Fungicide resistance is a serious problem for agriculture. This is particularly apparent in the case of powdery mildew fungi. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop new agrochemicals. Chitin is a well-known elicitor of plant immunity, and fungal pathogens have evolved strategies to overcome i...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2021
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8706340/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34946992 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jof7121009 |
_version_ | 1784622168874680320 |
---|---|
author | Martínez-Cruz, Jesús M. Polonio, Álvaro Zanni, Riccardo Romero, Diego Gálvez, Jorge Fernández-Ortuño, Dolores Pérez-García, Alejandro |
author_facet | Martínez-Cruz, Jesús M. Polonio, Álvaro Zanni, Riccardo Romero, Diego Gálvez, Jorge Fernández-Ortuño, Dolores Pérez-García, Alejandro |
author_sort | Martínez-Cruz, Jesús M. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Fungicide resistance is a serious problem for agriculture. This is particularly apparent in the case of powdery mildew fungi. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop new agrochemicals. Chitin is a well-known elicitor of plant immunity, and fungal pathogens have evolved strategies to overcome its detection. Among these strategies, chitin deacetylase (CDA) is responsible for modifying immunogenic chitooligomers and hydrolysing the acetamido group in the N-acetylglucosamine units to avoid recognition. In this work, we tested the hypothesis that CDA can be an appropriate target for antifungals using the cucurbit powdery mildew pathogen Podosphaera xanthii. According to our hypothesis, RNAi silencing of PxCDA resulted in a dramatic reduction in fungal growth that was linked to a rapid elicitation of chitin-triggered immunity. Similar results were obtained with treatments with carboxylic acids such as EDTA, a well-known CDA inhibitor. The disease-suppression activity of EDTA was not associated with its chelating activity since other chelating agents did not suppress disease. The binding of EDTA to CDA was confirmed by molecular docking studies. Furthermore, EDTA also suppressed green and grey mould-causing pathogens applied to oranges and strawberries, respectively. Our results conclusively show that CDA is a promising target for control of phytopathogenic fungi and that EDTA could be a starting point for fungicide design. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8706340 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-87063402021-12-25 Chitin Deacetylase, a Novel Target for the Design of Agricultural Fungicides Martínez-Cruz, Jesús M. Polonio, Álvaro Zanni, Riccardo Romero, Diego Gálvez, Jorge Fernández-Ortuño, Dolores Pérez-García, Alejandro J Fungi (Basel) Article Fungicide resistance is a serious problem for agriculture. This is particularly apparent in the case of powdery mildew fungi. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop new agrochemicals. Chitin is a well-known elicitor of plant immunity, and fungal pathogens have evolved strategies to overcome its detection. Among these strategies, chitin deacetylase (CDA) is responsible for modifying immunogenic chitooligomers and hydrolysing the acetamido group in the N-acetylglucosamine units to avoid recognition. In this work, we tested the hypothesis that CDA can be an appropriate target for antifungals using the cucurbit powdery mildew pathogen Podosphaera xanthii. According to our hypothesis, RNAi silencing of PxCDA resulted in a dramatic reduction in fungal growth that was linked to a rapid elicitation of chitin-triggered immunity. Similar results were obtained with treatments with carboxylic acids such as EDTA, a well-known CDA inhibitor. The disease-suppression activity of EDTA was not associated with its chelating activity since other chelating agents did not suppress disease. The binding of EDTA to CDA was confirmed by molecular docking studies. Furthermore, EDTA also suppressed green and grey mould-causing pathogens applied to oranges and strawberries, respectively. Our results conclusively show that CDA is a promising target for control of phytopathogenic fungi and that EDTA could be a starting point for fungicide design. MDPI 2021-11-25 /pmc/articles/PMC8706340/ /pubmed/34946992 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jof7121009 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 Martínez-Cruz, Jesús M. Polonio, Álvaro Zanni, Riccardo Romero, Diego Gálvez, Jorge Fernández-Ortuño, Dolores Pérez-García, Alejandro Chitin Deacetylase, a Novel Target for the Design of Agricultural Fungicides |
title | Chitin Deacetylase, a Novel Target for the Design of Agricultural Fungicides |
title_full | Chitin Deacetylase, a Novel Target for the Design of Agricultural Fungicides |
title_fullStr | Chitin Deacetylase, a Novel Target for the Design of Agricultural Fungicides |
title_full_unstemmed | Chitin Deacetylase, a Novel Target for the Design of Agricultural Fungicides |
title_short | Chitin Deacetylase, a Novel Target for the Design of Agricultural Fungicides |
title_sort | chitin deacetylase, a novel target for the design of agricultural fungicides |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8706340/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34946992 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jof7121009 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT martinezcruzjesusm chitindeacetylaseanoveltargetforthedesignofagriculturalfungicides AT polonioalvaro chitindeacetylaseanoveltargetforthedesignofagriculturalfungicides AT zanniriccardo chitindeacetylaseanoveltargetforthedesignofagriculturalfungicides AT romerodiego chitindeacetylaseanoveltargetforthedesignofagriculturalfungicides AT galvezjorge chitindeacetylaseanoveltargetforthedesignofagriculturalfungicides AT fernandezortunodolores chitindeacetylaseanoveltargetforthedesignofagriculturalfungicides AT perezgarciaalejandro chitindeacetylaseanoveltargetforthedesignofagriculturalfungicides |