Expressed sequence tags from the oomycete fish pathogen Saprolegnia parasitica reveal putative virulence factors

Torto-Alalibo, Trudy; Tian, Mingxing; Gajendran, Kamal; Waugh, Mark E.; West, Pieter van; Kamoun, Sophien

doi:10.1186/1471-2180-5-46

Cited by 89 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 86 publications

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“…Phylogenetic analyses indicate that the alveolata (that include apicomplexans such as Plasmodia) and the heterokonts (that group oomycetes with diatoms and brown algae) are sister groups [ 25 ]. Similarity in pathogenicity mechanisms between apicomplexans and oomycetes has been noted with regard to secretion of protease inhibitors and attachment to host tissues [ 26 – 28 ]. Our studies support functional conservation in the targeting signals these pathogens evolved to colonize diverse hosts.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Malarial Host-Targeting Signal Is Conserved in the Irish Potato Famine Pathogen

et al. 2006

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Animal and plant eukaryotic pathogens, such as the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum and the potato late blight agent Phytophthora infestans, are widely divergent eukaryotic microbes. Yet they both produce secretory virulence and pathogenic proteins that alter host cell functions. In P. falciparum, export of parasite proteins to the host erythrocyte is mediated by leader sequences shown to contain a host-targeting (HT) motif centered on an RxLx (E, D, or Q) core: this motif appears to signify a major pathogenic export pathway with hundreds of putative effectors. Here we show that a secretory protein of P. infestans, which is perceived by plant disease resistance proteins and induces hypersensitive plant cell death, contains a leader sequence that is equivalent to the Plasmodium HT-leader in its ability to export fusion of green fluorescent protein (GFP) from the P. falciparum parasite to the host erythrocyte. This export is dependent on an RxLR sequence conserved in P. infestans leaders, as well as in leaders of all ten secretory oomycete proteins shown to function inside plant cells. The RxLR motif is also detected in hundreds of secretory proteins of P. infestans, Phytophthora sojae, and Phytophthora ramorum and has high value in predicting host-targeted leaders. A consensus motif further reveals E/D residues enriched within ~25 amino acids downstream of the RxLR, which are also needed for export. Together the data suggest that in these plant pathogenic oomycetes, a consensus HT motif may reside in an extended sequence of ~25–30 amino acids, rather than in a short linear sequence. Evidence is presented that although the consensus is much shorter in P. falciparum, information sufficient for vacuolar export is contained in a region of ~30 amino acids, which includes sequences flanking the HT core. Finally, positional conservation between Phytophthora RxLR and P. falciparum RxLx (E, D, Q) is consistent with the idea that the context of their presentation is constrained. These studies provide the first evidence to our knowledge that eukaryotic microbes share equivalent pathogenic HT signals and thus conserved mechanisms to access host cells across plant and animal kingdoms that may present unique targets for prophylaxis across divergent pathogens.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Malarial Host-Targeting Signal Is Conserved in the Irish Potato Famine Pathogen

et al. 2006

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“…Globally, EIDs have caused high mortalities in farmed populations (Torto-Alalibo et al, 2005; Phillips et al, 2008; Van Den Berg et al, 2013). This is important information for wild populations because there are several instances where transmission of fungal and fungal-like microbes can occur between the two environments.…”

Section: Ecological Impact On Wild Populationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Current ecological understanding of fungal-like pathogens of fish: what lies beneath?

Gozlan¹,

Marshall²,

Lilje³

et al. 2014

Front. Microbiol.

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Despite increasingly sophisticated microbiological techniques, and long after the first discovery of microbes, basic knowledge is still lacking to fully appreciate the ecological importance of microbial parasites in fish. This is likely due to the nature of their habitats as many species of fish suffer from living beneath turbid water away from easy recording. However, fishes represent key ecosystem services for millions of people around the world and the absence of a functional ecological understanding of viruses, prokaryotes, and small eukaryotes in the maintenance of fish populations and of their diversity represents an inherent barrier to aquatic conservation and food security. Among recent emerging infectious diseases responsible for severe population declines in plant and animal taxa, fungal and fungal-like microbes have emerged as significant contributors. Here, we review the current knowledge gaps of fungal and fungal-like parasites and pathogens in fish and put them into an ecological perspective with direct implications for the monitoring of fungal fish pathogens in the wild, their phylogeography as well as their associated ecological impact on fish populations. With increasing fish movement around the world for farming, releases into the wild for sport fishing and human-driven habitat changes, it is expected, along with improved environmental monitoring of fungal and fungal-like infections, that the full extent of the impact of these pathogens on wild fish populations will soon emerge as a major threat to freshwater biodiversity.

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“…infestans with two major structural classes: (1) Kazal-like serine protease inhibitors (EPIs) [ 31 , 32 ] and (2) cystatin-like cysteine protease inhibitors (EPICs) [ 33 ]. Further transcriptome sequencing revealed the presence of both structural classes in other oomycetes [ 34 , 35 ]. Preliminary transcriptome analysis in Pl.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genome analyses of the sunflower pathogen Plasmopara halstedii provide insights into effector evolution in downy mildews and Phytophthora

et al. 2015

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BackgroundDowny mildews are the most speciose group of oomycetes and affect crops of great economic importance. So far, there is only a single deeply-sequenced downy mildew genome available, from Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis. Further genomic resources for downy mildews are required to study their evolution, including pathogenicity effector proteins, such as RxLR effectors. Plasmopara halstedii is a devastating pathogen of sunflower and a potential pathosystem model to study downy mildews, as several Avr-genes and R-genes have been predicted and unlike Arabidopsis downy mildew, large quantities of almost contamination-free material can be obtained easily.ResultsHere a high-quality draft genome of Plasmopara halstedii is reported and analysed with respect to various aspects, including genome organisation, secondary metabolism, effector proteins and comparative genomics with other sequenced oomycetes. Interestingly, the present analyses revealed further variation of the RxLR motif, suggesting an important role of the conservation of the dEER-motif. Orthology analyses revealed the conservation of 28 RxLR-like core effectors among Phytophthora species. Only six putative RxLR-like effectors were shared by the two sequenced downy mildews, highlighting the fast and largely independent evolution of two of the three major downy mildew lineages. This is seemingly supported by phylogenomic results, in which downy mildews did not appear to be monophyletic.ConclusionsThe genome resource will be useful for developing markers for monitoring the pathogen population and might provide the basis for new approaches to fight Phytophthora and downy mildew pathogens by targeting core pathogenicity effectors.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-015-1904-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Expressed sequence tags from the oomycete fish pathogen Saprolegnia parasitica reveal putative virulence factors

Cited by 89 publications

References 86 publications

The Malarial Host-Targeting Signal Is Conserved in the Irish Potato Famine Pathogen

The Malarial Host-Targeting Signal Is Conserved in the Irish Potato Famine Pathogen

Current ecological understanding of fungal-like pathogens of fish: what lies beneath?

Genome analyses of the sunflower pathogen Plasmopara halstedii provide insights into effector evolution in downy mildews and Phytophthora

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