Friend or foe: differential responses of rice to invasion by mutualistic or pathogenic fungi revealed by RNAseq and metabolite profiling

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 5; no. 1; p. 13624
• Main Authors: Xu, Xi-Hui, Wang, Chen, Li, Shu-Xian, Su, Zhen-Zhu, Zhou, Hui-Na, Mao, Li-Juan, Feng, Xiao-Xiao, Liu, Ping-Ping, Chen, Xia, Hugh Snyder, John, Kubicek, Christian P., Zhang, Chu-Long, Lin, Fu-Cheng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 08.09.2015; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 631/326/193/2540; 631/326/193/2542; 631/449/2169/2674; 631/449/2676/2677; Biosynthesis; Carbohydrate Metabolism; Cluster Analysis; Computational Biology; Endophytes; Energy Metabolism; Enzymes; Evolution; Fructose; Fungi; Gene expression; Gene Expression Profiling; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; Glycolysis; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing; Host plants; Host-Pathogen Interactions; Humanities and Social Sciences; Lignin; Maltose; Metabolites; Metabolome; Metabolomics; multidisciplinary; Mutation; Oryza - microbiology; Oryza - physiology; Plant Diseases - genetics; Plant Diseases - microbiology; Plant Roots - genetics; Plant Roots - metabolism; Plant species; Polymerase chain reaction; Ribonucleic acid; Rice; Rice blast; RNA; Roots; Science; Sucrose; Symbiosis; Transcriptome; Tricarboxylic acid cycle
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep13624

The rice endophyte Harpophora oryzae shares a common pathogenic ancestor with the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae . Direct comparison of the interactions between a single plant species and two closely-related (1) pathogenic and (2) mutualistic fungi species can improve our understanding of the evolution of the interactions between plants and fungi that lead to either mutualistic or pathogenic interactions. Differences in the metabolome and transcriptome of rice in response to challenge by H. or M. oryzae were investigated with GC-MS, RNA-seq and qRT-PCR. Levels of metabolites of the shikimate and lignin biosynthesis pathways increased continuously in the M. oryzae -challenged rice roots (Mo-roots); these pathways were initially induced, but then suppressed, in the H. oryzae -challenged rice roots (Ho-roots). Compared to control samples, concentrations of sucrose and maltose were reduced in the Ho-roots and Mo-roots. The expression of most genes encoding enzymes involved in glycolysis and the TCA cycle were suppressed in the Ho-roots, but enhanced in the Mo-roots. The suppressed glycolysis in Ho-roots would result in the accumulation of glucose and fructose which was not detected in the Mo-roots. A novel co-evolution pattern of fungi-host interaction is proposed which highlights the importance of plant host in the evolution of fungal symbioses.