San Toh Su, Chen Zehua, Rouchka Eric C, Schultz David J, Cuomo Christina A, Perlin Michael H
Department of Biology, Program on Disease Evolution, University of Louisville, Kentucky 40292.
Fungal Genomics Group, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142.
G3 (Bethesda). 2018 Feb 2;8(2):505-518. doi: 10.1534/g3.117.300318.
The successful interaction between pathogen/parasite and host requires a delicate balance between fitness of the former and survival of the latter. To optimize fitness a parasite/pathogen must effectively create an environment conducive to reproductive success, while simultaneously avoiding or minimizing detrimental host defense response. The association between and its host serves as an excellent model to examine such interactions. This fungus is part of a species complex that infects species of the Caryophyllaceae, replacing pollen with the fungal spores. In the current study, transcriptome analyses of the fungus and its host were conducted during discrete stages of bud development so as to identify changes in fungal gene expression that lead to spore development and to identify changes associated with infection in the host plant. In contrast to early biotrophic phase stages of infection for the fungus, the latter stages involve tissue necrosis and in the case of infected female flowers, further changes in the developmental program in which the ovary aborts and a pseudoanther is produced. Transcriptome analysis via Illumina RNA sequencing revealed enrichment of fungal genes encoding small secreted proteins, with hallmarks of effectors and genes found to be relatively unique to the species complex. Host gene expression analyses also identified interesting sets of genes up-regulated, including those involving stress response, host defense response, and several agamous-like MADS-box genes (AGL61 and AGL80), predicted to interact and be involved in male gametophyte development.
病原体/寄生虫与宿主之间的成功相互作用需要前者的适应性与后者的生存之间达到微妙的平衡。为了优化适应性，寄生虫/病原体必须有效地营造一个有利于繁殖成功的环境，同时避免或尽量减少宿主有害的防御反应。[具体真菌名称]与其宿主[具体宿主名称]之间的关联是研究此类相互作用的一个绝佳模型。这种真菌是感染石竹科植物物种的物种复合体的一部分，它用真菌孢子取代花粉。在本研究中，在芽发育的不同阶段对真菌及其宿主进行了转录组分析，以确定导致孢子发育的真菌基因表达变化，并确定与宿主植物感染相关的变化。与真菌感染的早期活体营养阶段不同，后期阶段涉及组织坏死，对于受感染的雌花而言，还涉及发育程序的进一步变化，即子房败育并产生假花药。通过Illumina RNA测序进行的转录组分析显示，编码小分泌蛋白的真菌基因富集，具有效应子的特征，并且发现这些基因在[具体真菌名称]物种复合体中相对独特。宿主基因表达分析还确定了有趣的上调基因集，包括那些涉及应激反应、宿主防御反应的基因，以及几个预测会相互作用并参与雄配子体发育的无配子体样MADS盒基因（AGL61和AGL80）。
