Comparative genomics reveals mobile pathogenicity chromosomes in Fusarium

By Li‐Jun Ma, H. V. D. Does, K. Borkovich, Jeffrey J. Coleman, M. Daboussi, A. Pietro, M. Dufresne, M. Freitag, Manfred G. Grabherr, Bernard Henrissat and 53 more. Nature, 2010

1,544 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Fusarium species are among the most important phytopathogenic and toxigenic fungi. To understand the molecular underpinnings of pathogenicity in the genus Fusarium, we compared the genomes of three phenotypically diverse species: Fusarium graminearum, Fusarium verticillioides and Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici. Our analysis revealed lineage-specific (LS) genomic regions in F. oxysporum that include four entire chromosomes and account for more than one-quarter of the genome. LS regions are rich in transposons and genes with distinct evolutionary profiles but related to pathogenicity, indicative of horizontal acquisition. Experimentally, we demonstrate the transfer of two LS chromosomes between strains of F. oxysporum, converting a non-pathogenic strain into a pathogen. Transfer of LS chromosomes between otherwise genetically isolated strains explains the polyphyletic origin of host specificity and the emergence of new pathogenic lineages in F. oxysporum. These findings put the evolution of fungal pathogenicity into a new perspective.

Subfields: Cell Biology, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7f3109137835898568c3c74038326f5048924085

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cell Biology

1. Leho Tedersoo
2. E. Liew
3. B. Summerell
4. J. Leslie
5. M. Bahram
6. Kessy Abarenkov
7. Urmas Kõljalg
8. T. Richards

In Plant Science

1. Leho Tedersoo
2. E. Liew
3. M. Bahram
4. B. Summerell
5. J. Leslie
6. Kessy Abarenkov
7. Urmas Kõljalg
8. T. Ganapathi

Citations in the corpus

• Fusarium wilt of banana: biology, epidemiology and management (2015, background): “There are 14 SIX proteins identified in F. oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici out of which 3 interact with specific resistance gene products of tomato namely I-1, I-2 and I-3 (Ma et al. 2010).”
• Genome Sequencing and Comparative Transcriptomics of the Model Entomopathogenic Fungi Metarhizium anisopliae and M. acridum (2011, neutral): “[28].”
• Evolution of nutritional modes of Ceratobasidiaceae (Cantharellales, Basidiomycota) as revealed from publicly available ITS sequences (2013, background): “We cannot rule out the possibility that host specificity occurs at the strain level as shown for the FusariumeGibberella complex (Ma et al. 2010).”
• Genome evolution in fungal plant pathogens: looking beyond the two-speed genome model (2020, neutral): “…et al. , 2009; Croll and McDonald, 2012; de Jonge et al., 2012, 2013; Dutheil et al. , 2016; Faino et al. , 2016; Fokkens et al. , 2018; Goodwin et al. , 2011; Ma et al. , 2010; Plissonneau et al., 2016, 2018; Rouxel et al. , 2011; Thon et al. , 2006; van Dam et al. , 2017; Wang et al. , 2017).”
• Advances in plant disease and pest management (2010, positive): “More recently, a comparative genomes/genetic study of cereal and noncereal infecting Fusarium species has revealed that entire chromosomes have evolved which contain all the genes required to cause disease in individual plant species (Ma et al. 2010).”
• FungiDB: an integrated functional genomics database for fungi (2011, neutral): “78 14457 (16) Magnaporthe oryzae (Magnaporthe grisea) 70-15 41.”
• Biogeography and phylogeography of Fusarium: a review (2010, background): “As is becoming better recognized, horizontal gene transfer (Ma et al. 2010) also is important for these fungi and putative inter-specific hybrid strains have been found under field conditions (Leslie et al. 2004a, b).”