SiRNA-dependent and -independent post-transcriptional cosuppression of the LTR-retrotransposon MAGGY in the phytopathogenic fungus Magnaporthe oryzae

Abstract

The LTR-retrotransposon MAGGY was introduced into naive genomes of Magnaporthe oryzae with different genetic backgrounds (wild-type, and MoDcl1 [mdl1] and MoDcl2 [mdl2] dicer mutants). The MoDcl2 mutants deficient in MAGGY siRNA biogenesis generally showed greater MAGGY mRNA accumulation and more rapid increase in MAGGY copy number than did the wild-type and MoDcl1 mutants exhibiting normal MAGGY siRNA accumulation, indicating that RNA silencing functioned as an effective defense against the invading element. Interestingly, however, regardless of genetic background, the rate of MAGGY transposition drastically decreased as its copy number in the genome increased. Notably, in the MoDcl2 mutant, copy-number-dependent MAGGY suppression occurred without a reduction in its mRNA accumulation, and therefore by a silencing mechanism distinct from both transcriptional gene silencing and siRNA-mediated RNA silencing. This might imply that some mechanism possibly similar to post-transcriptional cosuppression of Ty1 retrotransposition in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which operates regardless of the abundance of target transcript and independent of RNA silencing, would also function in M. oryzae that possesses the RNA silencing machinery.