Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-21-2023
Publication Title
PLoS Genetics
Abstract
The emergence of fungicide resistance severely threatens crop production by limiting the availability and application of established fungicides. Therefore, it is urgent to identify new fungicidal targets for controlling plant diseases. Here, we characterized the function of a conserved homoserine O-acetyltransferase (HOA) from the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae that could serve as the candidate antifungal target. Deletion of the MoMET2 and MoCYS2 genes encoding HOAs perturbed the biosynthesis of methionine and S-adenyl methionine, a methyl group donor for epigenetic modifications, and severely attenuated the development and virulence of M. oryzae. The ΔMomet2 mutant is significantly increased in 5-methylcytosine (5mC) modification that represses the expression of genes required for pathogenicity, including MoGLIK and MoCDH-CYT. We further showed that host-induced gene silencing (HIGS) targeting MoMET2 and MoCYS2 effectively controls rice blasts. Our studies revealed the importance of HOA in the development and virulence of M. oryzae, which suggests the potential feasibility of HOA as new targets for novel anti-rice blast measurements.
PubMed ID
37733784
Volume
19
Issue
9
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Li, Huimin; Mo, Pengcheng; Zhang, Jun; Xie, Zhuoer; Liu, Xinyu; Chen, Han; Yang, Leiyun; Liu, Muxing; Zhang, Haifeng; Wang, Ping; and Zhang, Zhengguang, "Methionine biosynthesis enzyme MoMet2 is required for rice blast fungus pathogenicity by promoting virulence gene expression via reducing 5mC modification" (2023). School of Medicine Faculty Publications. 2098.
https://digitalscholar.lsuhsc.edu/som_facpubs/2098
Included in
Medical Immunology Commons, Medical Microbiology Commons, Parasitology Commons, Plant Pathology Commons