The LAMMER Kinase MoKns1 Regulates Growth, Conidiation and Pathogenicity in .

is an important pathogen that causes a devastating disease in rice. It has been reported that the dual-specificity LAMMER kinase is conserved from yeast to animal species and has a variety of functions. However, the functions of the LAMMER kinase have not been reported in . In this study, we identified the unique LAMMER kinase MoKns1 and analyzed its function in . We found that in a deletion mutant, growth and conidiation were primarily decreased, and pathogenicity was almost completely lost. Furthermore, our results found that MoKns1 is involved in autophagy. The Δ mutant was sensitive to rapamycin, and MoKns1 interacted with the autophagy-related protein MoAtg18. Compared with the wild-type strain 70-15, autophagy was significantly enhanced in the Δ mutant. In addition, we also found that MoKns1 regulated DNA damage stress pathways, and the Δ mutant was more sensitive to hydroxyurea (HU) and methyl methanesulfonate (MMS) compared to the wild-type strain 70-15. The expression of genes related to DNA damage stress pathways in the Δ mutant was significantly different from that in the wild-type strain. Our results demonstrate that MoKns1 is an important pathogenic factor in involved in regulating autophagy and DNA damage response pathways, thus affecting virulence. This research on pathogenesis lays a foundation for the prevention and control of .