Langner, T;
Harant, A;
Gomez-Luciano, LB;
Shrestha, RK;
Malmgren, A;
Latorre, SM;
Burbano, HA;
... Kamoun, S; + view all
(2021)
Genomic rearrangements generate hypervariable mini-chromosomes in host-specific isolates of the blast fungus.
PLoS Genetics
, 17
(2)
, Article e1009386. 10.1371/journal.pgen.1009386.
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Abstract
Supernumerary mini-chromosomes-a unique type of genomic structural variation-have been implicated in the emergence of virulence traits in plant pathogenic fungi. However, the mechanisms that facilitate the emergence and maintenance of mini-chromosomes across fungi remain poorly understood. In the blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae (Syn. Pyricularia oryzae), mini-chromosomes have been first described in the early 1990s but, until very recently, have been overlooked in genomic studies. Here we investigated structural variation in four isolates of the blast fungus M. oryzae from different grass hosts and analyzed the sequences of mini-chromosomes in the rice, foxtail millet and goosegrass isolates. The mini-chromosomes of these isolates turned out to be highly diverse with distinct sequence composition. They are enriched in repetitive elements and have lower gene density than core-chromosomes. We identified several virulence-related genes in the mini-chromosome of the rice isolate, including the virulence-related polyketide synthase Ace1 and two variants of the effector gene AVR-Pik. Macrosynteny analyses around these loci revealed structural rearrangements, including inter-chromosomal translocations between core- and mini-chromosomes. Our findings provide evidence that mini-chromosomes emerge from structural rearrangements and segmental duplication of core-chromosomes and might contribute to adaptive evolution of the blast fungus.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Genomic rearrangements generate hypervariable mini-chromosomes in host-specific isolates of the blast fungus |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pgen.1009386 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1009386 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2021 Langner et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
| Keywords: | Genomics, Sequence alignment, Fungal genomics, Genome analysis, Protein domains, Rice, Plant fungal pathogens, Plant pathogens |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Genetics, Evolution and Environment |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10123168 |
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