The transcriptional landscape of plant infection by the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae reveals distinct families of temporally co-regulated and structurally conserved effectors

Yan, Xia, Tang, Bozeng, Ryder, Lauren S., MacLean, Dan, Were, Vincent M., Eseola, Alice Bisola, Cruz-Mireles, Neftaly, Ma, Weibin, Foster, Andrew J., Osés-Ruiz, Miriam and Talbot, Nicholas J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6434-7757 (2023) The transcriptional landscape of plant infection by the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae reveals distinct families of temporally co-regulated and structurally conserved effectors. Plant Cell, 35 (5). pp. 1360-1385. ISSN 1040-4651

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Abstract

The rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae causes a devastating disease that threatens global rice (Oryza sativa) production. Despite intense study, the biology of plant tissue invasion during blast disease remains poorly understood. Here we report a high-resolution transcriptional profiling study of the entire plant-associated development of the blast fungus. Our analysis revealed major temporal changes in fungal gene expression during plant infection. Pathogen gene expression could be classified into 10 modules of temporally co-expressed genes, providing evidence for the induction of pronounced shifts in primary and secondary metabolism, cell signaling, and transcriptional regulation. A set of 863 genes encoding secreted proteins are differentially expressed at specific stages of infection, and 546 genes named MEP (Magnaporthe effector protein) genes were predicted to encode effectors. Computational prediction of structurally related MEPs, including the MAX effector family, revealed their temporal co-regulation in the same co-expression modules. We characterized 32 MEP genes and demonstrate that Mep effectors are predominantly targeted to the cytoplasm of rice cells via the biotrophic interfacial complex and use a common unconventional secretory pathway. Taken together, our study reveals major changes in gene expression associated with blast disease and identifies a diverse repertoire of effectors critical for successful infection.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Data Availability Statement: RNA-seq data sets generated in this study have been deposited in the European Nucleotide Archive under the accession number provided. All other study data are included in the article and/or supporting information. All strains and plasmids generated in this study are available from the authors upon request. Funding Information: This work was supported by the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ ERC grant agreement no. 294702 GENBLAST, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Institute Strategic Programme Grant in Plant Health BBS/E/ J/000PR9797 and grant BB/V016342/1, and by an award from The Gatsby Charitable Foundation to N.J.T.
Uncontrolled Keywords: plant science ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1100/1110
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > The Sainsbury Laboratory
Faculty of Science > School of Computing Sciences
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Centres > Norwich Institute for Healthy Aging
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 29 Oct 2024 15:30
Last Modified: 03 Nov 2024 07:30
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/97349
DOI: 10.1093/plcell/koad036

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