Thioredoxin Reductase Is Involved in Development and Pathogenicity in Fusarium graminearum

Abstract

Fusarium graminearum is one of the causal agents of Fusarium head blight and produces the trichothecene mycotoxin, deoxynivalenol (DON). Thioredoxin reductases (TRRs) play critical roles in the recycling of oxidized thioredoxin. However, their functions are not well known in plant pathogenic fungi. In this study, we characterized a TRR orthologue FgTRR in F. graminearum. The FgTRR-GFP fusion protein localized to the cytoplasm. FgTRR gene deletion demonstrated that FgTRR is involved in hyphal growth, conidiation, sexual reproduction, DON production, and virulence. The ΔTRR mutants also exhibited a defect in pigmentation, the expression level of aurofusarin biosynthesis-related genes was significantly decreased in the FgTRR mutant. Furthermore, the ΔTRR mutants were more sensitive to oxidative stress and aggravated apoptosis-like cell death compared with the wild type strain. Taken together, these results indicate that FgTRR is important in development and pathogenicity in F. graminearum.

Novel Genetic Dysregulations and Oxidative Damage in Fusarium graminearum Induced by Plant Defense Eliciting Psychrophilic Bacillus atrophaeus TS1

“…Moreover, the treatment of Bacillus spp. can lead to structural and functional deterioration in F. graminearum as studied through electron microscopy and expression regulation of fungal pathogenicity-linked genes [14][15][16]. A fungal genome-wide analysis can be performed to identify pathogenicity-associated gene families and their phylogenetic relationship, gene structure, and biochemical properties [17].…”

Thioredoxin Reductase 1 Is a Highly Immunogenic Cell Surface Antigen in Paracoccidioides spp., Candida albicans, and Cryptococcus neoformans

“…Interestingly, other antibodies had as targets proteins that are not traditionally associated with the cell wall like TRR1, such as the cytosolic molecular chaperones HSP90 (Matthews et al, 1991) and HSP60 (Guimarães et al, 2009) and a histone-like protein (Nosanchuk et al, 2003). In C. neoformans (Missall and Lodge, 2005) and Fusarium graminearum (Fan et al, 2019), GFPtagged TRR1 was localized in the cytoplasm and mitochondria, the sites in which its enzymatic function is carried out. Our immunofluorescence experiments, however, showed the protein is distributed in a punctate pattern on the surface of the three fungi studied.…”

The Dynamin-Like GTPase FgSey1 Plays a Critical Role in Fungal Development and Virulence in Fusarium graminearum

“…For wheat coleoptile infection assays, a 2.5-l aliquot of conidial suspension (2 ϫ 10 6 spores/ml in sterile distilled water) was applied, and symptoms were observed 8 dpi (59). At least 10 plants were inoculated with each strain.…”

“…For DON production assays, three mycelial plugs of each strain were inoculated with 5 g of autoclaved rice grains. After 20 days of incubation at 25°C, DON was extracted, and concentrations were determined by a high-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) system (AB Sciex, 5500) (59). Each experiment was repeated at least three times.…”