Conservation of the genes for HC-toxin biosynthesis in Alternaria jesenskae

BMC Microbiology

Research Article

Jonathan D Walton¹  Wanessa D Wight²  Roman Labuda³ 

[1] Department of Energy Plant Research Laboratory, Michigan State University, 612 Wilson Road, Room 210, 48824, East Lansing, MI, USA;Department of Energy Plant Research Laboratory, Michigan State University, 612 Wilson Road, Room 210, 48824, East Lansing, MI, USA;4351 E. Strange Hwy, 48837, Grand Ledge, MI, USA;Romer Labs Division Holding GmbH, Technopark 1, 3430, Tulln, Austria;

关键词: Nonribosomal peptide synthetase;    Host-selective toxin;    Plant pathogenesis;    Cyclic peptide;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2180-13-165

 received in 2013-04-18, accepted in 2013-07-12,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundHC-toxin, a cyclic tetrapeptide, is a virulence determinant for the plant pathogenic fungus Cochliobolus carbonum. It was recently discovered that another fungus, Alternaria jesenskae, also produces HC-toxin.ResultsThe major genes (collectively known as AjTOX2) involved in the biosynthesis of HC-toxin were identified from A. jesenskae by genomic sequencing. The encoded orthologous proteins share 75-85% amino acid identity, and the genes for HC-toxin biosynthesis are duplicated in both fungi. The genomic organization of the genes in the two fungi show a similar but not identical partial clustering arrangement. A set of representative housekeeping proteins show a similar high level of amino acid identity between C. carbonum and A. jesenskae, which is consistent with the close relatedness of these two genera within the family Pleosporaceae (Dothideomycetes).ConclusionsThis is the first report that the plant virulence factor HC-toxin is made by an organism other than C. carbonum. The genes may have moved by horizontal transfer between the two species, but it cannot be excluded that they were present in a common ancestor and lost from other species of Alternaria and Cochliobolus.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Wight et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.