Abstract
Rhizoctonia solani, one of the most detrimental necrotrophic pathogens, causes rice sheath blight and poses a severe threat to production. Focus on the function of effectors secreted by necrotrophic pathogens during infection has grown rapidly in recent years. However, little is known about the virulence and mechanisms of these proteins. In this study, we performed functional studies on putative effectors in R. solani and revealed that AGLIP1 out of 13 putative effectors induced cell death in Nicotiana benthamiana. AGLIP1 was also demonstrated to trigger cell death in rice protoplasts. The predicted lipase active sites and signal peptide (SP) of this protein were required for the cell death-inducing ability. AGLIP1 was greatly induced during R. solani infection in rice sheath. The AGLIP1’s virulence function was further demonstrated by transgenic technology. The pathogenesis-related genes induced by pathogen-associated molecular pattern and bacteria were remarkably inhibited in AGLIP1-expressing transgenic Arabidopsis lines. Ectopic expression of AGLIP1 strongly facilitated disease progression in Arabidopsis caused by the type III secretion system-defective mutant from Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000. Collectively, these results indicate that AGLIP1 is a possible effector that plays a significant role in pathogen virulence through inhibiting basal defenses and promoting disease development in plants.
Highlights
IntroductionRhizoctonia solani (teleomorph: Thanatephorus cucumeris) is classified as a saprophytic fungus, which resides in the soil in the form of sclerotia and does not produce asexual spores
Rhizoctonia solani is classified as a saprophytic fungus, which resides in the soil in the form of sclerotia and does not produce asexual spores
To identify if any effectors in R. solani have the ability to induce cell death, we chose 13 putative effectors that contained conserved domain and predicted functions (Supplementary Table S1). 13 putative effectors were transiently expressed in N. benthamiana through Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transfection after amplifying and subcloning into the glucocorticoid-inducible pTA7001 binary vector (Aoyama and Chua, 1997)
Summary
Rhizoctonia solani (teleomorph: Thanatephorus cucumeris) is classified as a saprophytic fungus, which resides in the soil in the form of sclerotia and does not produce asexual spores. It is complex, with more than 100 species which infect crops, such as rice, wheat, corn, cotton and soybean, ornamental, and horticultural plants. R. solani is divided into 14 anastomosis groups Based on differences in culture characters, host, physiology and biochemistry, they are divided into different subgroups (Ogoshi, 1987; Anderson et al, 2017). AG1 IA is the most destructive group of pathogens that causes diseases in many monocot and dicot plants. The second most serious rice disease, rice sheath blight, which can reduce rice production up to 50%, is brought on by AG1 IA (Bernardes-de-Assis et al, 2009)
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