Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) Plant Industry, Queensland Bioscience Precinct, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
PLoS Pathog. 2012 Sep;8(9):e1002952. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1002952. Epub 2012 Sep 27.
Comparative analyses of pathogen genomes provide new insights into how pathogens have evolved common and divergent virulence strategies to invade related plant species. Fusarium crown and root rots are important diseases of wheat and barley world-wide. In Australia, these diseases are primarily caused by the fungal pathogen Fusarium pseudograminearum. Comparative genomic analyses showed that the F. pseudograminearum genome encodes proteins that are present in other fungal pathogens of cereals but absent in non-cereal pathogens. In some cases, these cereal pathogen specific genes were also found in bacteria associated with plants. Phylogenetic analysis of selected F. pseudograminearum genes supported the hypothesis of horizontal gene transfer into diverse cereal pathogens. Two horizontally acquired genes with no previously known role in fungal pathogenesis were studied functionally via gene knockout methods and shown to significantly affect virulence of F. pseudograminearum on the cereal hosts wheat and barley. Our results indicate using comparative genomics to identify genes specific to pathogens of related hosts reveals novel virulence genes and illustrates the importance of horizontal gene transfer in the evolution of plant infecting fungal pathogens.
病原体基因组的比较分析为了解病原体如何进化出共同和不同的毒力策略来入侵相关的植物物种提供了新的见解。镰刀菌冠腐和根腐病是小麦和大麦在全世界的重要病害。在澳大利亚,这些疾病主要由真菌病原体镰孢拟茎点霉引起。比较基因组分析表明,F. pseudograminearum 基因组编码的蛋白质存在于其他谷物真菌病原体中,但不存在于非谷物病原体中。在某些情况下,这些谷物病原体特异性基因也存在于与植物相关的细菌中。选择的 F. pseudograminearum 基因的系统发育分析支持了水平基因转移到不同的谷物病原体的假说。通过基因敲除方法研究了两个先前在真菌发病机制中没有已知作用的水平获得基因,发现它们显著影响了 F. pseudograminearum 在谷物宿主小麦和大麦上的毒力。我们的研究结果表明,使用比较基因组学来鉴定与相关宿主病原体特异性的基因揭示了新的毒力基因,并说明了水平基因转移在植物侵染性真菌病原体进化中的重要性。