The Ustilago hordei–Barley Interaction Is a Versatile System for Characterization of Fungal Effectors

Journal of Fungi

卷:7

Gunther Doehlemann¹  Bilal Ökmen¹  Ulla Neumann²  Daniela Schwammbach³  Guus Bakkeren⁴ 

[1] BioCenter, Institute for Plant Sciences, University of Cologne, Zülpicher Straße 47a, 50674 Cologne, Germany;

[2] Central Microscopy, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Carl-von-Linné-Weg 10, 50829 Cologne, Germany;

[3] Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Karl von Frisch Straße, D-35043 Marburg, Germany;

[4] Summerland Research and Development Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Summerland, BC V0H 1Z0, Canada;

关键词: Ustilago hordei;    heterologous gene expression;    effectors;    haustoria;    CRISPR-Cas9;   

DOI  :  10.3390/jof7020086

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Obligate biotrophic fungal pathogens, such as Blumeria graminis and Puccinia graminis, are amongst the most devastating plant pathogens, causing dramatic yield losses in many economically important crops worldwide. However, a lack of reliable tools for the efficient genetic transformation has hampered studies into the molecular basis of their virulence or pathogenicity. In this study, we present the Ustilago hordei–barley pathosystem as a model to characterize effectors from different plant pathogenic fungi. We generate U. hordei solopathogenic strains, which form infectious filaments without the presence of a compatible mating partner. Solopathogenic strains are suitable for heterologous expression system for fungal virulence factors. A highly efficient Crispr/Cas9 gene editing system is made available for U. hordei. In addition, U. hordei infection structures during barley colonization are analyzed using transmission electron microscopy, showing that U. hordei forms intracellular infection structures sharing high similarity to haustoria formed by obligate rust and powdery mildew fungi. Thus, U. hordei has high potential as a fungal expression platform for functional studies of heterologous effector proteins in barley.

【 授权许可】

Unknown