Comparative sequence analysis of wheat and barley powdery mildew fungi reveals gene colinearity, dates divergence and indicates host-pathogen co-evolution

The two fungal pathogens Blumeria graminis f. sp. tritici (B.g. tritici) and hordei (B.g. hordei) cause powdery mildew specifically in wheat or barley. They have the same life cycle, but their growth is restricted to the respective host. Here, we compared the sequences of two loci in both cereal mil...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Fungal genetics and biology 2011-03, Vol.48 (3), p.327-334
Main Authors: Oberhaensli, Simone, Parlange, Francis, Buchmann, Jan P., Jenny, Fabian H., Abbott, James C., Burgis, Timothy A., Spanu, Pietro D., Keller, Beat, Wicker, Thomas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ascomycota - genetics
Bacterial artificial chromosomes
barley
Blumeria graminis
Blumeria graminis f. sp. tritici
Cereals
Co-evolution
coevolution
Conservation
Data processing
DNA Transposable Elements
DNA, Fungal - chemistry
DNA, Fungal - genetics
DNA, Intergenic
Evolution
Evolution, Molecular
Fungal comparative genomics
Fungi
genes
Genetic Speciation
Genomes
Hordeum - microbiology
Hordeum vulgare
hosts
Integration
intergenic DNA
Life cycle
Molecular Sequence Data
Pathogen
Pathogens
Plant Diseases - microbiology
Polymorphism, Genetic
Powdery mildew
sequence analysis
Sequence Analysis, DNA
Sequence Homology
Synteny
Transposons
Triticum - microbiology
Triticum aestivum
wheat
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Summary:The two fungal pathogens Blumeria graminis f. sp. tritici (B.g. tritici) and hordei (B.g. hordei) cause powdery mildew specifically in wheat or barley. They have the same life cycle, but their growth is restricted to the respective host. Here, we compared the sequences of two loci in both cereal mildews to determine their divergence time and their relationship with the evolution of their hosts. We sequenced a total of 273.3kb derived from B.g. tritici BAC sequences and compared them with the orthologous regions in the B.g. hordei genome. Protein-coding genes were colinear and well conserved. In contrast, the intergenic regions showed very low conservation mostly due to different integration patterns of transposable elements. To estimate the divergence time of B.g. tritici and B.g. hordei, we used conserved intergenic sequences including orthologous transposable elements. This revealed that B.g. tritici and B.g. hordei have diverged about 10 million years ago (MYA), two million years after wheat and barley (12 MYA). These data suggest that B.g. tritici and B.g. hordei have co-evolved with their hosts during most of their evolutionary history after host divergence, possibly after a short phase of host expansion when the same pathogen could still grow on the two diverged hosts.
ISSN:1087-1845
1096-0937
DOI:10.1016/j.fgb.2010.10.003