Genomic perspectives on the evolution of fungal entomopathogenicity in Beauveria bassiana

By Guohua Xiao, S. Ying, Peng Zheng, Zheng-Liang Wang, Siwei Zhang, Xue-Qin Xie, Yanfang Shang, R. S. St. Leger, Guo-Ping Zhao, Chengshu Wang and 1 more. Scientific Reports, 2012

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The ascomycete fungus Beauveria bassiana is a pathogen of hundreds of insect species and is commercially produced as an environmentally friendly mycoinsecticide. We sequenced the genome of B. bassiana and a phylogenomic analysis confirmed that ascomycete entomopathogenicity is polyphyletic, but also revealed convergent evolution to insect pathogenicity. We also found many species-specific virulence genes and gene family expansions and contractions that correlate with host ranges and pathogenic strategies. These include B. bassiana having many more bacterial-like toxins (suggesting an unsuspected potential for oral toxicity) and effector-type proteins. The genome also revealed that B. bassiana resembles the closely related Cordyceps militaris in being heterothallic, although its sexual stage is rarely observed. A high throughput RNA-seq transcriptomic analysis revealed that B. bassiana could sense and adapt to different environmental niches by activating well-defined gene sets. The information from this study will facilitate further development of B. bassiana as a cost-effective mycoinsecticide.

Subfields: Insect Science, Molecular Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8c0cd687e7f02010ae8c5bacf59688fdfb6bdad4

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  1. Chengshu Wang
  2. M. Feng

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