Nuclear exchange generates population diversity in the wheat leaf rust pathogen Puccinia triticina
In clonally reproducing dikaryotic rust fungi, non-sexual processes such as somatic nuclear exchange are postulated to play a role in diversity but have been difficult to detect due to the lack of genome resolution between the two haploid nuclei. We examined three nuclear-phased genome assemblies of...
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Published in | Nature microbiology Vol. 8; no. 11; pp. 2130 - 2141 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
London
Nature Publishing Group UK
01.11.2023
Nature Publishing Group |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | In clonally reproducing dikaryotic rust fungi, non-sexual processes such as somatic nuclear exchange are postulated to play a role in diversity but have been difficult to detect due to the lack of genome resolution between the two haploid nuclei. We examined three nuclear-phased genome assemblies of
Puccinia triticina
, which causes wheat leaf rust disease. We found that the most recently emerged Australian lineage was derived by nuclear exchange between two pre-existing lineages, which originated in Europe and North America. Haplotype-specific phylogenetic analysis reveals that repeated somatic exchange events have shuffled haploid nuclei between long-term clonal lineages, leading to a global
P. triticina
population representing different combinations of a limited number of haploid genomes. Thus, nuclear exchange seems to be the predominant mechanism generating diversity and the emergence of new strains in this otherwise clonal pathogen. Such genomics-accelerated surveillance of pathogen evolution paves the way for more accurate global disease monitoring.
Sperschneider et al. generate nuclear-assigned genome assemblies for several isolates of the wheat leaf rust pathogen,
Puccinia triticina
, and show that repeated nuclei shuffling between clonal lineages has created global populations. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 2058-5276 2058-5276 |
DOI: | 10.1038/s41564-023-01494-9 |