MoWhi2 Mediates Mitophagy to Regulate Conidiation and Pathogenesis in .

Mitophagy refers to the specific process of degrading mitochondria, which is an important physiological process to maintain the balance of mitochondrial quantity and quality in cells. At present, the mechanisms of mitophagy in pathogenic fungi remain unclear. (Syn. ), the causal agent of rice blast disease, is responsible for the most serious disease of rice. In , mitophagy occurs in the foot cells and invasive hyphae to promote conidiation and infection. In this study, fluorescent observations and immunoblot analyses showed that general stress response protein MoWhi2 is required for mitophagy in . In addition, the activation of the autophagy, pexophagy and cytoplasm-to-vacuole targeting (CVT) pathway upon nitrogen starvation was determined using the , and strains and the Δ mutant in these backgrounds. The results indicated that MoWhi2 is specifically required for mitophagy in . Further studies showed that mitophagy in the foot cells and invasive hyphae of the Δ was interrupted, leading to reduced conidiation and virulence in the Δ mutant. Taken together, we found that MoWhi2 contributes to conidiation and invasive growth by regulating mitophagy in .