Sod gene of Curvularia lunata is associated with the virulence in maize leaf

• Published in: Journal of Integrative Agriculture Vol. 16; no. 4; pp. 874 - 883
• Main Authors: GAO, Shi-gang, NI, Xuan, LI, Ying-ying, FU, Ke-he, YU, Chuan-jin, GAO, Jin-xin, WANG, Meng, LI, Ya-qian, CHEN, Jie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: School of Agriculture and Biology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University/State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, Shanghai Jiao Tong University/Key Laboratory of Urban Agriculture(South), Ministry of Agriculture, Shanghai 200240, P.R.China%School of Biology, Nanchang Normal University, Nanchang 330000, P.R.China 01.04.2017; Elsevier
• Subjects: Curvularia lunata; GenBank; gene function; infection; Sod; SOD基因; 毒力变化; 玉米叶片; 玉米弯孢叶斑病菌; 玉米弯孢菌叶斑病; 超氧化物歧化酶; 黑色素生成; Curvularia lunata; Sod; infection; gene function
• ISSN: 2095-3119; 2352-3425
• DOI: 10.1016/S2095-3119(16)61513-7

Curvularia leaf spot, caused mainly by Curvularia lunata, is a widespread plant disease in China. In the recent years, di- rectional host selection by the pathogen, which likely results in the virulence differentiation in pathogens, is widely reported. Among the hallmarks potentially associated to pathogen variation in virulence, superoxide dismutase gene Sod has been found to be closely related to the enhancement of virulence. In the present study, the full-length of Sod was obtained via Blastn alignment against GenBank and the whole genome of C. lunata. In order to understand the role of Sod in the vir- ulence variation in C. lunata, targeted gene disruption was performed to construct Sod mutants. The cell wall degrading enzyme （CWDE） activities and toxin production of ASod were not distinctly different from wild-type strain CX-3 and its complon. However, at an early stage of infection, 3Sod virulence appeared to be lower than CX-3 and the complon, while at a later stage, its virulence gradually returned to the level of CX-3 and the complon. Furthermore, the melanin production of ASod was significantly reduced compared to CX-3 and the complon, suggesting that Sod gene influences the virulence by regulating melanin production at an early stage of infection but is not essential for pathogenicity. However, the disruption of Sod did not significantly affect the transcriptional expression of the melanin biosynthesis-associated genes, bml and scd. Therefore, we infer that Sod in C. lunata are involved, to some extent, with the virulence in maize leaf, but still needs further studies to have a clear understanding of its mechanism.