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.
Project description:A spontaneously phenotypically degenerated strain of M. robertsii strain ARSEF 2575 (M. robertsii lc2575; lc = low conidiation) showed a reduction in conidiation and fungal virulence after successive subculturing on artificial medium. However, the conidial production and fungal virulence of a phenotypically degenerated M. robertsii were recovered by serially passaging through a plant host. The DNA methylation level of phenotypically degenerated Metarhizium robertsii M. robertsii lc2575 and this fungi after solider bean passages were tested through the whole genome bisulfite sequencing. The results showed that approximately 0.379 % of cytosines are methylated in the fungi after bean passages, almost the same as the DNA methylation level in M. robertsii lc2575 (0.375%). The distribution of different methylated regions located more on intergenic regions of fungi after bean passages than M. robertsii lc2575. Gene Ontology (GO) analysis and KEGG analysis of DMR-associated genes revealed that amino acid, carbohydrate and fatty acid metabolism.
