The Genome Biology of Effector Gene Evolution in Filamentous Plant Pathogens

Filamentous pathogens, including fungi and oomycetes, pose major threats to global food security. Crop pathogens cause damage by secreting effectors that manipulate the host to the pathogen's advantage. Genes encoding such effectors are among the most rapidly evolving genes in pathogen genomes....

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Published inAnnual review of phytopathology Vol. 56; no. 1; pp. 21 - 40
Main Authors Sánchez-Vallet, Andrea, Fouché, Simone, Fudal, Isabelle, Hartmann, Fanny E, Soyer, Jessica L, Tellier, Aurélien, Croll, Daniel
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Annual Reviews 25.08.2018
Subjects
Adaptation, Biological
effectors
Environmental Sciences
epigenetics
Evolution, Molecular
Fungi - genetics
gene regulation
Genes, Fungal - genetics
Genome
genome evolution
Genome, Fungal
Life Sciences
Oomycetes - genetics
pangenome
Plant Diseases - microbiology
Plant Diseases - prevention & control
polymorphism
Polymorphism, Genetic
population genomics
pangenome
gene regulation
genome evolution
population genomics
effectors
polymorphism
epigenetics
Oomycetes
filamentous pathogens
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Summary:Filamentous pathogens, including fungi and oomycetes, pose major threats to global food security. Crop pathogens cause damage by secreting effectors that manipulate the host to the pathogen's advantage. Genes encoding such effectors are among the most rapidly evolving genes in pathogen genomes. Here, we review how the major characteristics of the emergence, function, and regulation of effector genes are tightly linked to the genomic compartments where these genes are located in pathogen genomes. The presence of repetitive elements in these compartments is associated with elevated rates of point mutations and sequence rearrangements with a major impact on effector diversification. The expression of many effectors converges on an epigenetic control mediated by the presence of repetitive elements. Population genomics analyses showed that rapidly evolving pathogens show high rates of turnover at effector loci and display a mosaic in effector presence-absence polymorphism among strains. We conclude that effective pathogen containment strategies require a thorough understanding of the effector genome biology and the pathogen's potential for rapid adaptation.
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ISSN:0066-4286
1545-2107
DOI:10.1146/annurev-phyto-080516-035303