BMC Biology最新文献

{"title":"Spatio-temporal characterization of phenotypic resistance in malaria vector species.","authors":"Eric Ali Ibrahim, Mark Wamalwa, John Odindi, Henri E Z Tonnang","doi":"10.1186/s12915-024-01915-z","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12915-024-01915-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Malaria, a deadly disease caused by Plasmodium protozoa parasite and transmitted through bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes, remains a significant public health challenge in sub-Saharan Africa. Efforts to eliminate malaria have increasingly focused on vector control using insecticides. However, the emergence of insecticide resistance (IR) in malaria vectors pose a formidable obstacle, and the current IR mapping models remain static, relying on fixed coefficients. This study introduces a dynamic spatio-temporal approach to characterize phenotypic resistance in Anopheles gambiae complex and Anopheles arabiensis. We developed a cellular automata (CA) model and applied it to data collected from Ethiopia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Burkina Faso. The data encompasses georeferenced records detailing IR levels in mosquito vector populations across various classes of insecticides. In characterizing the dynamic patterns of confirmed resistance, we identified key driving factors through correlation analysis, chi-square tests, and extensive literature review.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The CA model demonstrated robustness in capturing the spatio-temporal dynamics of confirmed IR states in the vector populations. In our model, the key driving factors included insecticide usage, agricultural activities, human population density, Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) characteristics, and environmental variables.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The CA model developed offers a robust tool for countries that have limited data on confirmed IR in malaria vectors. The embrace of a dynamical modeling approach and accounting for evolving conditions and influences, contribute to deeper understanding of IR dynamics, and can inform effective strategies for malaria vector control, and prevention in regions facing this critical health challenge.</p>","PeriodicalId":9339,"journal":{"name":"BMC Biology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11102860/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141064987","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exonuclease editor promotes precision of gene editing in mammalian cells.","authors":"Hui Shi, Lei Li, Shuangshuang Mu, Shixue Gou, Xiaoyi Liu, Fangbing Chen, Menglong Chen, Qin Jin, Liangxue Lai, Kepin Wang","doi":"10.1186/s12915-024-01918-w","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12915-024-01918-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Many efforts have been made to improve the precision of Cas9-mediated gene editing through increasing knock-in efficiency and decreasing byproducts, which proved to be challenging.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Here, we have developed a human exonuclease 1-based genome-editing tool, referred to as exonuclease editor. When compared to Cas9, the exonuclease editor gave rise to increased HDR efficiency, reduced NHEJ repair frequency, and significantly elevated HDR/indel ratio. Robust gene editing precision of exonuclease editor was even superior to the fusion of Cas9 with E1B or DN1S, two previously reported precision-enhancing domains. Notably, exonuclease editor inhibited NHEJ at double strand breaks locally rather than globally, reducing indel frequency without compromising genome integrity. The replacement of Cas9 with single-strand DNA break-creating Cas9 nickase further increased the HDR/indel ratio by 453-fold than the original Cas9. In addition, exonuclease editor resulted in high microhomology-mediated end joining efficiency, allowing accurate and flexible deletion of targeted sequences with extended lengths with the aid of paired sgRNAs. Exonuclease editor was further used for correction of DMD patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells, where 30.0% of colonies were repaired by HDR versus 11.1% in the control.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Therefore, the exonuclease editor system provides a versatile and safe genome editing tool with high precision and holds promise for therapeutic gene correction.</p>","PeriodicalId":9339,"journal":{"name":"BMC Biology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11107001/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141070521","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Insights into the biocontrol and plant growth promotion functions of Bacillus altitudinis strain KRS010 against Verticillium dahliae.","authors":"Yujia Shan, Dan Wang, Fu-Hua Zhao, Jian Song, He Zhu, Yue Li, Xiao-Jun Zhang, Xiao-Feng Dai, Dongfei Han, Jie-Yin Chen","doi":"10.1186/s12915-024-01913-1","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12915-024-01913-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Verticillium wilt, caused by the fungus Verticillium dahliae, is a soil-borne vascular fungal disease, which has caused great losses to cotton yield and quality worldwide. The strain KRS010 was isolated from the seed of Verticillium wilt-resistant Gossypium hirsutum cultivar \"Zhongzhimian No. 2.\"</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The strain KRS010 has a broad-spectrum antifungal activity to various pathogenic fungi as Verticillium dahliae, Botrytis cinerea, Fusarium spp., Colletotrichum spp., and Magnaporthe oryzae, of which the inhibition rate of V. dahliae mycelial growth was 73.97% and 84.39% respectively through confrontation test and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) treatments. The strain was identified as Bacillus altitudinis by phylogenetic analysis based on complete genome sequences, and the strain physio-biochemical characteristics were detected, including growth-promoting ability and active enzymes. Moreover, the control efficiency of KRS010 against Verticillium wilt of cotton was 93.59%. After treatment with KRS010 culture, the biomass of V. dahliae was reduced. The biomass of V. dahliae in the control group (Vd991 alone) was 30.76-folds higher than that in the treatment group (KRS010+Vd991). From a molecular biological aspect, KRS010 could trigger plant immunity by inducing systemic resistance (ISR) activated by salicylic acid (SA) and jasmonic acid (JA) signaling pathways. Its extracellular metabolites and VOCs inhibited the melanin biosynthesis of V. dahliae. In addition, KRS010 had been characterized as the ability to promote plant growth.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This study indicated that B. altitudinis KRS010 is a beneficial microbe with a potential for controlling Verticillium wilt of cotton, as well as promoting plant growth.</p>","PeriodicalId":9339,"journal":{"name":"BMC Biology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11103837/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141064984","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The crotonylated and succinylated proteins of jujube involved in phytoplasma-stress responses.","authors":"Liman Zhang, Huibin Wang, Chaoling Xue, Yin Liu, Yao Zhang, Zhiguo Liu, Xiangrui Meng, Mengjun Liu, Jin Zhao","doi":"10.1186/s12915-024-01917-x","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12915-024-01917-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Protein posttranslational modifications (PTMs) are fast and early responses to environmental changes, including pathogen infection. Jujube witches' broom (JWB) is a phytoplasma disease causing great economic loss in jujube production. After phytoplasma infection, the transcriptional, translational, and metabolic levels in jujube were activated, enabling it to survive during phytoplasma invasion. However, no study has yet reported on PTMs in jujube. Lysine crotonylation (Kcr) and lysine succinylation (Ksu) have been popular studies in recent years and their function in plant phytoplasma-stress responses remains unclear.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Here, 1656 crotonylated and 282 succinylated jujube proteins were first identified under phytoplasma-stress, of which 198 were simultaneously crotonylated and succinylated. Comparative analysis revealed that 656 proteins, 137 crotonylated and 43 succinylated proteins in jujube were regulated by phytoplasma infection, suggesting that Kcr was more universal than Ksu. Kcr differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) were related to ribosomes, photosynthetic and carbon metabolism, while Ksu DEPs were mainly involved in carbon metabolism, the TCA cycle and secondary metabolite biosynthesis. The crosstalk network among proteome, crotonylome and succinylome showed that DEPs related to ribosomal, peroxidases and glutathione redox were enriched. Among them, ZjPOD51 and ZjPHGPX2 significantly increased at the protein and Kcr level under phytoplasma-stress. Notably, 7 Kcr sites were identified in ZjPHGPX2, a unique antioxidant enzyme. After inhibitor nicotinamide (NAM) treatment, GPX enzyme activity in jujube seedlings was reduced. Further, site-directed mutagenesis of key Kcr modification sites K130 and/or K135 in ZjPHGPX2 significantly reduced its activity.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This study firstly provided large-scale datasets of Kcr and Ksu in phytoplasma-infected jujube and revealed that Kcr modification in ZjPHGPX2 positively regulates its activity.</p>","PeriodicalId":9339,"journal":{"name":"BMC Biology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11094900/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140944065","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Dynamics and drivers of fungal communities in a multipartite ant-plant association.","authors":"Veronica Barrajon-Santos, Maximilian Nepel, Bela Hausmann, Hermann Voglmayr, Dagmar Woebken, Veronika E Mayer","doi":"10.1186/s12915-024-01897-y","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12915-024-01897-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Fungi and ants belong to the most important organisms in terrestrial ecosystems on Earth. In nutrient-poor niches of tropical rainforests, they have developed steady ecological relationships as a successful survival strategy. In tropical ant-plant mutualisms worldwide, where resident ants provide the host plants with defense and nutrients in exchange for shelter and food, fungi are regularly found in the ant nesting space, inhabiting ant-made dark-colored piles (\"patches\"). Unlike the extensively investigated fungus-growing insects, where the fungi serve as the primary food source, the purpose of this ant-fungi association is less clear. To decipher the roles of fungi in these structures within ant nests, it is crucial to first understand the dynamics and drivers that influence fungal patch communities during ant colony development.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>In this study, we investigated how the ant colony age and the ant-plant species affect the fungal community in the patches. As model we selected one of the most common mutualisms in the Tropics of America, the Azteca-Cecropia complex. By amplicon sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) region, we analyzed the patch fungal communities of 93 Azteca spp. colonies inhabiting Cecropia spp. trees. Our study demonstrates that the fungal diversity in patches increases as the ant colony grows and that a change in the prevalent fungal taxa occurs between initial and established patches. In addition, the ant species significantly influences the composition of the fungal community in established ant colonies, rather than the host plant species.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The fungal patch communities become more complex as the ant colony develops, due to an acquisition of fungi from the environment and a substrate diversification. Our results suggest a successional progression of the fungal communities in the patches during ant colony growth and place the ant colony as the main driver shaping such communities. The findings of this study demonstrate the unexpectedly complex nature of ant-plant mutualisms in tropical regions at a micro scale.</p>","PeriodicalId":9339,"journal":{"name":"BMC Biology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11093746/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140920954","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cyp6g2 is the major P450 epoxidase responsible for juvenile hormone biosynthesis in Drosophila melanogaster.","authors":"Qiangqiang Jia, Liu Yang, Jiamin Wen, Suning Liu, Di Wen, Wei Luo, Weihua Wang, Subba Reddy Palli, Li Sheng","doi":"10.1186/s12915-024-01910-4","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12915-024-01910-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Juvenile hormones (JH) play crucial role in regulating development and reproduction in insects. The most common form of JH is JH III, derived from MF through epoxidation by CYP15 enzymes. However, in the higher dipterans, such as the fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster, a bis-epoxide form of JHB3, accounted most of the JH detected. Moreover, these higher dipterans have lost the CYP15 gene from their genomes. As a result, the identity of the P450 epoxidase in the JH biosynthesis pathway in higher dipterans remains unknown.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>In this study, we show that Cyp6g2 serves as the major JH epoxidase responsible for the biosynthesis of JHB3 and JH III in D. melanogaster. The Cyp6g2 is predominantly expressed in the corpus allatum (CA), concurring with the expression pattern of jhamt, another well-studied gene that is crucial in the last steps of JH biosynthesis. Mutation in Cyp6g2 leads to severe disruptions in larval-pupal metamorphosis and exhibits reproductive deficiencies, exceeding those seen in jhamt mutants. Notably, Cyp6g2^-/-::jhamt² double mutants all died at the pupal stage but could be rescued through the topical application of JH analogs. JH titer analyses revealed that both Cyp6g2^-/- mutant and jhamt² mutant lacking JHB3 and JH III, while overexpression of Cyp6g2 or jhamt caused a significant increase in JHB3 and JH III titer.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>These findings collectively established that Cyp6g2 as the major JH epoxidase in the higher dipterans and laid the groundwork for the further understanding of JH biosynthesis. Moreover, these findings pave the way for developing specific Cyp6g2 inhibitors as insect growth regulators or insecticides.</p>","PeriodicalId":9339,"journal":{"name":"BMC Biology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11092216/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140915831","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comparative transcriptomic analysis provides insights into the genetic networks regulating oil differential production in oil crops.","authors":"Jinwen Chen, Yan Hu, Ting Zhao, Chujun Huang, Jiani Chen, Lu He, Fan Dai, Shuqi Chen, Luyao Wang, Shangkun Jin, Tianzhen Zhang","doi":"10.1186/s12915-024-01909-x","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12915-024-01909-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Plants differ more than threefold in seed oil contents (SOCs). Soybean (Glycine max), cotton (Gossypium hirsutum), rapeseed (Brassica napus), and sesame (Sesamum indicum) are four important oil crops with markedly different SOCs and fatty acid compositions.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Compared to grain crops like maize and rice, expanded acyl-lipid metabolism genes and relatively higher expression levels of genes involved in seed oil synthesis (SOS) in the oil crops contributed to the oil accumulation in seeds. Here, we conducted comparative transcriptomics on oil crops with two different SOC materials. In common, DIHYDROLIPOAMIDE DEHYDROGENASE, STEAROYL-ACYL CARRIER PROTEIN DESATURASE, PHOSPHOLIPID:DIACYLGLYCEROL ACYLTRANSFERASE, and oil-body protein genes were both differentially expressed between the high- and low-oil materials of each crop. By comparing functional components of SOS networks, we found that the strong correlations between genes in \"glycolysis/gluconeogenesis\" and \"fatty acid synthesis\" were conserved in both grain and oil crops, with PYRUVATE KINASE being the common factor affecting starch and lipid accumulation. Network alignment also found a conserved clique among oil crops affecting seed oil accumulation, which has been validated in Arabidopsis. Differently, secondary and protein metabolism affected oil synthesis to different degrees in different crops, and high SOC was due to less competition of the same precursors. The comparison of Arabidopsis mutants and wild type showed that CINNAMYL ALCOHOL DEHYDROGENASE 9, the conserved regulator we identified, was a factor resulting in different relative contents of lignins to oil in seeds. The interconnection of lipids and proteins was common but in different ways among crops, which partly led to differential oil production.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This study goes beyond the observations made in studies of individual species to provide new insights into which genes and networks may be fundamental to seed oil accumulation from a multispecies perspective.</p>","PeriodicalId":9339,"journal":{"name":"BMC Biology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11089805/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140911419","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evolutionary genomics of socially polymorphic populations of Pogonomyrmex californicus.","authors":"Mohammed Errbii, Ulrich R Ernst, Aparna Lajmi, Eyal Privman, Jürgen Gadau, Lukas Schrader","doi":"10.1186/s12915-024-01907-z","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12915-024-01907-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Social insects vary considerably in their social organization both between and within species. In the California harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex californicus (Buckley 1867), colonies are commonly founded and headed by a single queen (haplometrosis, primary monogyny). However, in some populations in California (USA), unrelated queens cooperate not only during founding (pleometrosis) but also throughout the life of the colony (primary polygyny). The genetic architecture and evolutionary dynamics of this complex social niche polymorphism (haplometrosis vs pleometrosis) have remained unknown.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We provide a first analysis of its genomic basis and evolutionary history using population genomics comparing individuals from a haplometrotic population to those from a pleometrotic population. We discovered a recently evolved (< 200 k years), 8-Mb non-recombining region segregating with the observed social niche polymorphism. This region shares several characteristics with supergenes underlying social polymorphisms in other socially polymorphic ant species. However, we also find remarkable differences from previously described social supergenes. Particularly, four additional genomic regions not in linkage with the supergene show signatures of a selective sweep in the pleometrotic population. Within these regions, we find for example genes crucial for epigenetic regulation via histone modification (chameau) and DNA methylation (Dnmt1).</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Altogether, our results suggest that social morph in this species is a polygenic trait involving a potential young supergene. Further studies targeting haplo- and pleometrotic individuals from a single population are however required to conclusively resolve whether these genetic differences underlie the alternative social phenotypes or have emerged through genetic drift.</p>","PeriodicalId":9339,"journal":{"name":"BMC Biology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11089791/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140911423","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Genomic insights into the cellular specialization of predation in raptorial protists.","authors":"Zaihan Li, Xiao Chen, Fangqing Zhao, Miao Miao","doi":"10.1186/s12915-024-01904-2","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12915-024-01904-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Predation is a fundamental mechanism for organisms to acquire energy, and various species have evolved diverse tools to enhance their hunting abilities. Among protozoan predators, raptorial Haptorian ciliates are particularly fascinating as they possess offensive extrusomes known as toxicysts, which are rapidly discharged upon prey contact. However, our understanding of the genetic processes and specific toxins involved in toxicyst formation and discharge is still limited.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>In this study, we investigated the predation strategies and subcellular structures of seven Haptoria ciliate species and obtained their genome sequences using single-cell sequencing technology. Comparative genomic analysis revealed distinct gene duplications related to membrane transport proteins and hydrolytic enzymes in Haptoria, which play a crucial role in the production and discharge of toxicysts. Transcriptomic analysis further confirmed the abundant expression of genes related to membrane transporters and cellular toxins in Haptoria compared to Trichostomatia. Notably, polyketide synthases (PKS) and L-amino acid oxidases (LAAO) were identified as potentially toxin genes that underwent extensive duplication events in Haptoria.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Our results shed light on the evolutionary and genomic adaptations of Haptorian ciliates for their predation strategies in evolution and provide insights into their toxic mechanisms.</p>","PeriodicalId":9339,"journal":{"name":"BMC Biology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11077807/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140875928","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Functional analysis of the mating type genes in Verticillium dahliae.","authors":"Ya-Duo Zhang, Xiao-Bin Ji, Juan Zong, Xiao-Feng Dai, Steven J Klosterman, Krishna V Subbarao, Dan-Dan Zhang, Jie-Yin Chen","doi":"10.1186/s12915-024-01900-6","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12915-024-01900-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Populations of the plant pathogenic fungus Verticillium dahliae display a complex and rich genetic diversity, yet the existence of sexual reproduction in the fungus remains contested. As pivotal genes, MAT genes play a crucial role in regulating cell differentiation, morphological development, and mating of compatible cells. However, the functions of the two mating type genes in V. dahliae, VdMAT1-1-1, and VdMAT1-2-1, remain poorly understood.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>In this study, we confirmed that the MAT loci in V. dahliae are highly conserved, including both VdMAT1-1-1 and VdMAT1-2-1 which share high collinearity. The conserved core transcription factor encoded by the two MAT loci may facilitate the regulation of pheromone precursor and pheromone receptor genes by directly binding to their promoter regions. Additionally, peptide activity assays demonstrated that the signal peptide of the pheromone VdPpg1 possessed secretory activity, while VdPpg2, lacked a predicted signal peptide. Chemotactic growth assays revealed that V. dahliae senses and grows towards the pheromones FO-a and FO-α of Fusarium oxysporum, as well as towards VdPpg2 of V. dahliae, but not in response to VdPpg1. The findings herein also revealed that VdMAT1-1-1 and VdMAT1-2-1 regulate vegetative growth, carbon source utilization, and resistance to stressors in V. dahliae, while negatively regulating virulence.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>These findings underscore the potential roles of VdMAT1-1-1 and VdMAT1-2-1 in sexual reproduction and confirm their involvement in various asexual processes of V. dahliae, offering novel insights into the functions of mating type genes in this species.</p>","PeriodicalId":9339,"journal":{"name":"BMC Biology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11077750/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140875927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}