Influence of genetic diversity of seventeen Beauveria bassiana isolates from different hosts on virulence by comparative genomics

Zhengkun Zhang,Yu Zhao,Yang Lu,Wenjing Xu,Yangzhou Wang,Li Sui,Qiyun Li,Qian Du

doi:10.1186/s12864-020-06791-9

Abstract

BackgroundBeauveria bassiana (B. bassiana) is a famous entomopathogenic fungus that could parasitize on hundreds of insect species, which are being used as an environmentally friendly mycoinsecticide. Nevertheless, the possible effect of genetic diversity of these B. bassiana isolates from different hosts on virulence has not been explored before. In order to explore that issue, we compared the genome sequences among seventeen B. bassiana isolates from 17 different insects using whole genome re-sequencing, with B. bassiana strain ARSEF 2860 as the reference genome.ResultsThere were a total of 10,098 missense mutated genes, 720 positively selected genes were identified in 17 strains of B. bassiana. Among these, two genes with high frequency mutations encode the toxin-producing non-ribosomal peptide synthase (NRPS) protein. Seven genes undergoing positive selection were enriched in the two-component signaling pathway that is known to regulate the fungal toxicity. In addition, the domain changes of three positively selected genes are also directly related to the virulence plasticity. Besides, the functional categorization of mutated genes showed that most of them involved in the biological functions of toxic proteins involved in.ConclusionsBased on our data, our results indicate that several mutated genes and positively selected genes may underpin virulence of B. bassiana towards hosts during infection process, which provide an insight into the potential effects of natural variation on the virulence of B. bassiana, which will be useful in screening out potential virulence factors in B. bassiana.

Highlights

Beauveria bassiana (B. bassiana) is a famous entomopathogenic fungus that could parasitize on hundreds of insect species, which are being used as an environmentally friendly mycoinsecticide
71.22% of the cleaned reads could be successfully mapped to the B. bassiana strain ARSEF 2860 reference genome, with varying 67.30 to 75.30% among different strains (Table 1)
Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and InDels identification All clean reads were aligned to the reference genome assembly of B. bassiana strain ARSEF 2860

Summary

Introduction

Beauveria bassiana (B. bassiana) is a famous entomopathogenic fungus that could parasitize on hundreds of insect species, which are being used as an environmentally friendly mycoinsecticide. The possible effect of genetic diversity of these B. bassiana isolates from different hosts on virulence has not been explored before. In order to explore that issue, we compared the genome sequences among seventeen B. bassiana isolates from 17 different insects using whole genome re-sequencing, with B. bassiana strain ARSEF 2860 as the reference genome. Valero-Jiménez et al sequenced the genomes of five isolates of B. bassiana with low/high virulence, and identified several genes and molecular processes that effect the virulence towards Mosquitoes [12]. These studies provide a better understanding of the natural variation in virulence by genome analysis. Understanding genetic polymorphisms is helpful to understand its potential virulence diversity of B. bassiana isolates isolated from different hosts

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