School of BioSciences, 1929 Botany Building, the University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia.
FEMS Microbiol Lett. 2019 Apr 1;366(7). doi: 10.1093/femsle/fnz080.
Identification of pathogenicity determinants in Leptosphaeria maculans, a major cause of disease of oilseed crops, has been a focus of research for many years. A wealth of gene expression information from RNA sequencing promises to illuminate the mechanisms by which the fungus is able to cause blackleg disease. However, to date, no studies have tested the hypothesis that high gene transcript levels during infection correlate with importance to disease progression. In this study, we use CRISPR-Cas9 to disrupt 11 genes that are highly expressed during the early stages of disease and show that none of these genes are crucial for fungal pathogenicity on Brassica napus. This finding suggests that in order to understand the pathogenicity of this fungus more sophisticated techniques than simple expression analysis will need to be employed.
多年来，鉴定导致油料作物病害的主要病原菌——茎点霉属（Leptosphaeria maculans）的致病因子一直是研究的重点。来自 RNA 测序的大量基因表达信息有望阐明该真菌引起黑胫病的机制。然而，迄今为止，尚无研究检验这样一个假设，即在感染过程中高基因转录水平与对疾病进展的重要性相关。在这项研究中，我们使用 CRISPR-Cas9 技术破坏了在疾病早期高度表达的 11 个基因，结果表明这些基因对于黑胫病菌在油菜上的致病性都不是必需的。这一发现表明，为了更好地理解该真菌的致病性，需要采用比简单的表达分析更复杂的技术。
