Project description:The entomopathogen Metarhizium anisopliae contains strains with wide host ranges and specialist strains adapted to particular hosts. Patterns of gene duplication, divergence and deletion in three generalist and three specialist strains were investigated by heterologous hybridization of genomic DNA to genes from the generalist strain ARSEF 2575. Many sequences from 2575 that are highly conserved in fungi showed rapid evolution and loss in specialist Metarhizium genomes. Some poorly hybridizing genes in specialists were functionally coordinated, including several involved in toxin biosyntheses and sugar metabolism in root exudates, indicative of reductive evolution. This suggests that specialists are loosing genes required to live in alternative hosts or as saprophytes. Several components of mobile genetic elements were also highly divergent or lost in specialists. Exceptionally, the genome of the specialist strain ARSEF 443 contained extra insertion elements that might play a role in generating evolutionary novelty.
Project description:Purpose: This transcriptomic analysis aims at unveiling all possible genes orchestrated by Cfp1, which is evidently required for insect pathogenicity and virulence-related cellular events of Metarhizium robertsii. Methods: Total RNAs were extracted from three 3-day-old hyphal cultures (replicates) of cfp1 disruption and wild-type strains grown under normal culture conditionsand and subjected to deep sequencing on Illumina NovaseqTM 6000 platform. The sequence reads that passed quality filters were mapped to the genome of Metarhizium robertsii. All genes differentially expressed in the disruptant versus the wild-type strain were enriched to GO function classes and KEGG pathways. Results: The resultant transcriptome comprises 10681 detected genes. Among those, 605 genes were dysregulated in the absence of cfp1, including 356 down-regulated and 249 up-regulated. Conclusions: Cfp1 lacking any predictable function domain has profound impact on the genomic expression of Metarhizium robertsii.
