Stripe Rust Effector Pst_9302 Inhibits Wheat Immunity to Promote Susceptibility

• Published in: Plants (Basel) Vol. 13; no. 1; p. 94
• Main Authors: Zhao, Haibin, Huang, Jiangyu, Zhao, Xiaoyan, Yu, Ligang, Wang, Xiaodong, Zhao, Congcong, Nasab, Hojjatollah Rabbani, Tang, Chunlei, Wang, Xiaojie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 27.12.2023; MDPI
• Subjects: Amino acids; Analysis; Antifungal agents; Causes of; Cell death; Chloroplasts; effector; Effectors; Fungi; Gene silencing; Genetic engineering; Genomes; Haustoria; Health aspects; HIGS; Identification and classification; Infection; Infections; Ion channels; Kinases; Metabolism; Pathogenicity; Pathogens; Pattern recognition; Peptides; Physiological aspects; Plant diseases; Plant immunity; Plant immunology; Prevention; Proteins; Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici; Reactive oxygen species; Stripe rust; VDAC1; Virulence; Virulence (Microbiology); Wheat; Yeasts; Japan; China; VDAC1; effector; Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici; HIGS; plant immunity
• ISSN: 2223-7747; 2223-7747
• DOI: 10.3390/plants13010094

f. sp. is an obligate biotrophic fungus that causes destructive stripe rust disease in wheat. During infection, secretes virulence effectors via a specific infection structure-the haustorium-inside host cells to disturb host immunity and promote fungal colonization and expansion. Hence, the identification and functional analyses of effectors are of great significance in deciphering the pathogenicity mechanism. Here, we identified one candidate effector Pst_9302 that could suppress Bax-triggered cell death in . qRT-PCR analyses showed that the transcript levels of were highly increased during the early infection stages of . The transient expression of in wheat via the type-three secretion system (T3SS) significantly inhibited the callose deposition induced by EtHAn. During wheat- interaction, overexpression suppressed reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation and cell death caused by the avirulent race CYR23. The host-induced gene silencing (HIGS) of resulted in decreased pathogenicity with reduced infection area. The results suggest that Pst_9302 plays a virulence role in suppressing plant immunity and promoting pathogenicity. Moreover, wheat voltage-dependent anion channel 1 protein (TaVDAC1) was identified as candidate Pst_9302-interacting proteins by yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) screening. Pull-down assays using the His-Pst_9302 and GST-TaVDAC1 protein verified their interactions. These results suggest that Pst_9302 may modulate wheat TaVDAC1 to regulate plant immunity.