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A pair of effectors encoded on a conditionally dispensable chromosome of Fusarium oxysporum suppress host-specific immunity.

ABSTRACT: Many plant pathogenic fungi contain conditionally dispensable (CD) chromosomes that are associated with virulence, but not growth in vitro. Virulence-associated CD chromosomes carry genes encoding effectors and/or host-specific toxin biosynthesis enzymes that may contribute to determining host specificity. Fusarium oxysporum causes devastating diseases of more than 100 plant species. Among a large number of host-specific forms, F. oxysporum f. sp. conglutinans (Focn) can infect Brassicaceae plants including Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) and cabbage. Here we show that Focn has multiple CD chromosomes. We identified specific CD chromosomes that are required for virulence on Arabidopsis, cabbage, or both, and describe a pair of effectors encoded on one of the CD chromosomes that is required for suppression of Arabidopsis-specific phytoalexin-based immunity. The effector pair is highly conserved in F. oxysporum isolates capable of infecting Arabidopsis, but not of other plants. This study provides insight into how host specificity of F. oxysporum may be determined by a pair of effector genes on a transmissible CD chromosome.

SUBMITTER: Ayukawa Y

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8190069 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundSoil-borne fungi of the Fusarium oxysporum species complex cause devastating wilt disease on many crops including legumes that supply human dietary protein needs across many parts of the globe. We present and compare draft genome assemblies for three legume-infecting formae speciales (ff. spp.): F. oxysporum f. sp. ciceris (Foc-38-1) and f. sp. pisi (Fop-37622), significant pathogens of chickpea and pea respectively, the world's second and third most important grain legumes, and lastly f. sp. medicaginis (Fom-5190a) for which we developed a model legume pathosystem utilising Medicago truncatula.ResultsFocusing on the identification of pathogenicity gene content, we leveraged the reference genomes of Fusarium pathogens F. oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici (tomato-infecting) and F. solani (pea-infecting) and their well-characterised core and dispensable chromosomes to predict genomic organisation in the newly sequenced legume-infecting isolates. Dispensable chromosomes are not essential for growth and in Fusarium species are known to be enriched in host-specificity and pathogenicity-associated genes. Comparative genomics of the publicly available Fusarium species revealed differential patterns of sequence conservation across F. oxysporum formae speciales, with legume-pathogenic formae speciales not exhibiting greater sequence conservation between them relative to non-legume-infecting formae speciales, possibly indicating the lack of a common ancestral source for legume pathogenicity. Combining predicted dispensable gene content with in planta expression in the model legume-infecting isolate, we identified small conserved regions and candidate effectors, four of which shared greatest similarity to proteins from another legume-infecting ff. spp.ConclusionsWe demonstrate that distinction of core and potential dispensable genomic regions of novel F. oxysporum genomes is an effective tool to facilitate effector discovery and the identification of gene content possibly linked to host specificity. While the legume-infecting isolates didn't share large genomic regions of pathogenicity-related content, smaller regions and candidate effector proteins were highly conserved, suggesting that they may play specific roles in inducing disease on legume hosts.

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A pair of effectors encoded on a conditionally dispensable chromosome of Fusarium oxysporum suppress host-specific immunity.

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