Genome-wide functional analysis reveals that infection-associated fungal autophagy is necessary for rice blast disease

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2009-09, Vol.106 (37), p.15967-15972
• Main Authors: Kershaw, Michael J, Talbot, Nicholas J
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Apoptosis; Appressoria; autophagy; Autophagy - genetics; Autophagy - physiology; Biological Sciences; blast disease; Blasts; Cell death; Conidia; Fungi; Gene Deletion; Gene expression regulation; Genes; Genes, Fungal; Genome, Fungal; Genome-Wide Association Study; Genomics; Green Fluorescent Proteins - genetics; Host-Pathogen Interactions - genetics; Host-Pathogen Interactions - physiology; host-pathogen relationships; Infections; Magnaporthe; Magnaporthe - genetics; Magnaporthe - pathogenicity; Magnaporthe - physiology; Magnaporthe grisea; Magnaporthe oryzae; microbial genetics; Microscopy, Fluorescence; mutants; Mutation; Oryza - microbiology; Oryza sativa; Plant diseases; Plant Diseases - microbiology; Recombinant Proteins - genetics; Rice
• ISSN: 0027-8424; 1091-6490
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0901477106

To cause rice blast disease, the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae elaborates specialized infection structures called appressoria, which use enormous turgor to rupture the tough outer cuticle of a rice leaf. Here, we report the generation of a set of 22 isogenic M. oryzae mutants each differing by a single component of the predicted autophagic machinery of the fungus. Analysis of this set of targeted deletion mutants demonstrated that loss of any of the 16 genes necessary for nonselective macroautophagy renders the fungus unable to cause rice blast disease, due to impairment of both conidial programmed cell death and appressorium maturation. In contrast, genes necessary only for selective forms of autophagy, such as pexophagy and mitophagy, are dispensable for appressorium-mediated plant infection. A genome-wide analysis therefore demonstrates the importance of infection-associated, nonselective autophagy for the establishment of rice blast disease.