Genomic Insights into the Origin of Parasitism in the Emerging Plant Pathogen Bursaphelenchus xylophilus

PLoS Pathogens

John T. Jones¹  Natsumi Kanzaki¹  Norio Sahashi²  Taisei Kikuchi³  Johji Miwa³  Isheng J. Tsai³  Paul McVeigh³  Matthew Berriman⁴  Koichi Hasegawa⁴  Takuma Takanashi⁴  Mattias C. Larsson⁵  Samuel A. Assefa⁵  Aaron G. Maule⁵  Thomas Dan Otto⁶  James A. Cotton⁶  Alejandro Sanchez-Flores⁶  Kazuko Tsuchihara⁶  Toshiro Yokoi⁶  Peter J. A. Cock⁶  Jonathan J. Dalzell⁶  Adam J. Reid⁶  Martin Hunt⁷ 

[1] College of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Chubu University, Kasugai, Japan;Department of Plant Protection Biology, Division of Chemical Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Alnarp, Sweden;Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, Tsukuba, Japan;Molecular Biosciences-Parasitology, Institute of Agri-Food and Land Use, School of Biological Sciences, Medical Biology Centre, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom;Neurosensing and Bionavigation Research Center, Doshisha University, Kyotanabe, Kyoto, Japan;Parasite Genomics, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, United Kingdom;Plant Pathology Programme, The James Hutton Institute, Invergowrie, United Kingdom

关键词: Caenorhabditis elegans;    Invertebrate genomics;    Plant pathology;    Fungal genomics;    Phylogenetic analysis;    Nematoda;    Nematode infections;    Protein domains;   

DOI  :  10.1371/journal.ppat.1002219

学科分类：生物科学（综合）

来源: Public Library of Science

【 摘 要 】

Bursaphelenchus xylophilus is the nematode responsible for a devastating epidemic of pine wilt disease in Asia and Europe, and represents a recent, independent origin of plant parasitism in nematodes, ecologically and taxonomically distinct from other nematodes for which genomic data is available. As well as being an important pathogen, the B. xylophilus genome thus provides a unique opportunity to study the evolution and mechanism of plant parasitism. Here, we present a high-quality draft genome sequence from an inbred line of B. xylophilus, and use this to investigate the biological basis of its complex ecology which combines fungal feeding, plant parasitic and insect-associated stages. We focus particularly on putative parasitism genes as well as those linked to other key biological processes and demonstrate that B. xylophilus is well endowed with RNA interference effectors, peptidergic neurotransmitters (including the first description of ins genes in a parasite) stress response and developmental genes and has a contracted set of chemosensory receptors. B. xylophilus has the largest number of digestive proteases known for any nematode and displays expanded families of lysosome pathway genes, ABC transporters and cytochrome P450 pathway genes. This expansion in digestive and detoxification proteins may reflect the unusual diversity in foods it exploits and environments it encounters during its life cycle. In addition, B. xylophilus possesses a unique complement of plant cell wall modifying proteins acquired by horizontal gene transfer, underscoring the impact of this process on the evolution of plant parasitism by nematodes. Together with the lack of proteins homologous to effectors from other plant parasitic nematodes, this confirms the distinctive molecular basis of plant parasitism in the Bursaphelenchus lineage. The genome sequence of B. xylophilus adds to the diversity of genomic data for nematodes, and will be an important resource in understanding the biology of this unusual parasite.

【 授权许可】

CC BY