Dataset Information

The Subtilisin-Like Protease Bcser2 Affects the Sclerotial Formation, Conidiation and Virulence of Botrytis cinerea.

ABSTRACT: Botrytis cinerea, a ubiquitous necrotrophic plant-pathogenic fungus, is responsible for grey mold and rot disease in a very wide range of plant species. Subtilisin-like proteases (or subtilases) are a very diverse family of serine proteases present in many organisms and are reported to have a broad spectrum of biological functions. Here, we identified two genes encoding subtilisin-like proteases (Bcser1 and Bcser2) in the genome of B. cinerea, both of which contain an inhibitor I9 domain and a peptidase S8 domain. The expression levels of Bcser1 and Bcser2 increased during the sclerotial forming stage, as well as during a later stage of hyphal infection on Arabidopsis thaliana leaves, but the up-regulation of Bcser1 was significantly higher than that of Bcser2. Interestingly, deletion of Bcser1 had no effect on the fungal development or virulence of B. cinerea. However, deletion of Bcser2 or double deletion of Bcser1 and Bcser2 severely impaired the hyphal growth, sclerotial formation and conidiation of B. cinerea. We also found that ?Bcser2 and ?Bcser1/2 could not form complete infection cushions and then lost the ability to infect intact plant leaves of Arabidopsis and tomato but could infect wounded plant tissues. Taken together, our results indicate that the subtilisin-like protease Bcser2 is crucial for the sclerotial formation, conidiation, and virulence of B. cinerea.

SUBMITTER: Liu X

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7013506 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

The Subtilisin-Like Protease Bcser2 Affects the Sclerotial Formation, Conidiation and Virulence of Botrytis cinerea.

Liu Xinqiang X Xie Jiatao J Fu Yanping Y Jiang Daohong D Chen Tao T Cheng Jiasen J

International journal of molecular sciences 20200117 2

Botrytis cinerea, a ubiquitous necrotrophic plant-pathogenic fungus, is responsible for grey mold and rot disease in a very wide range of plant species. Subtilisin-like proteases (or subtilases) are a very diverse family of serine proteases present in many organisms and are reported to have a broad spectrum of biological functions. Here, we identified two genes encoding subtilisin-like proteases (Bcser1 and Bcser2) in the genome of B. cinerea, both of which contain an ...[more]

PMID: 31963451

Similar Datasets

Project description:Botrytis cinerea is an important plant pathogenic fungus with a wide range of host. It usually produces black-colored sclerotia (BS) due to deposition of 1,8-dihydroxynaphthalene melanin in sclerotial melanogenesis. Our previous study (Zhou et al., 2018) reported six B. cinerea isolates producing orange-colored sclerotia (OS) with deficiency in sclerotial melanogenesis. Comparison of ecological fitness (conidia, mycelia, sclerotia), natural distribution, and melanogenesis of selected BS and OS isolates suggests that sclerotia play an important role in the disease cycle caused by B. cinerea. However, the molecular mechanism for formation of the OS B. cinerea remains unknown. This study was done to unravel the molecular mechanism for the sclerotial melanogenesis deficiency in the OS isolates. We found that all the five sclerotial melanogenesis genes (bcpks12, bcygh1, bcbrn1/2, bcscd1) were down-regulated in OS isolates, compared to the genes in the BS isolates. However, the sclerotial melanogenesis-regulatory gene bcsmr1 had similar expression in both types of sclerotia, suggesting the sclerotial melanogenesis deficiency is due to loss-of-function of bcsmr1, rather than lack of expression of bcsmr1. Therefore, we cloned bcsmr1 from OS (bcsmr1OS ) and BS (bcsmr1BS ) isolates, and found a single-nucleotide deletion in bcsmr1OS . The single-nucleotide deletion caused formation of a premature stop codon in the open reading frame of bcsmr1OS , resulting in production of a 465-aa truncated protein. The transcription activity of the truncated protein was greatly reduced, compared to that of the 935-aa full-length protein encoded by bcsmr1BS in the BS isolates. The function of bcsmr1OS was partially complemented by bcsmr1BS . This study not only elucidated the molecular mechanism for formation of orange-colored sclerotia by the spontaneous mutant XN-1 of B. cinerea, but also confirmed the regulatory function of bcsmr1 in sclerotial melanogenesis of B. cinerea.

Dataset Information

The Subtilisin-Like Protease Bcser2 Affects the Sclerotial Formation, Conidiation and Virulence of Botrytis cinerea.

Publications

The Subtilisin-Like Protease Bcser2 Affects the Sclerotial Formation, Conidiation and Virulence of <i>Botrytis cinerea</i>.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure