Bakkeren Guus, Kämper Jörg, Schirawski Jan
Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada, Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre, Summerland, BC, Canada.
Fungal Genet Biol. 2008 Aug;45 Suppl 1:S15-21. doi: 10.1016/j.fgb.2008.04.005. Epub 2008 May 22.
Smut fungi are basidiomycete plant pathogens that pose a threat to many important cereal crops. In order to be pathogenic on plants, smut fungal cells of compatible mating-type need to fuse. Fusion and pathogenicity are regulated by two loci, a and b, which harbor conserved genes. The functions of the encoded mating-type complexes have been well-studied in the model fungus Ustilago maydis and will be briefly reviewed here. Sequence comparison of the mating-type loci of different smut and related fungi has revealed that these loci differ substantially in structure. These structural differences point to an evolution from tetrapolar to bipolar mating behavior, which might have occurred several independent times during fungal speciation.
黑粉菌是担子菌纲的植物病原体，对许多重要的谷类作物构成威胁。为了在植物上致病，亲和交配型的黑粉菌细胞需要融合。融合和致病性由两个位点（a和b）调控，这两个位点含有保守基因。编码的交配型复合体的功能在模式真菌玉米黑粉菌中已得到充分研究，在此将简要回顾。不同黑粉菌和相关真菌交配型位点的序列比较表明，这些位点在结构上有很大差异。这些结构差异表明从四极性交配行为向双极性交配行为的进化，这可能在真菌物种形成过程中独立发生了几次。
