Regulatory roles of introns in fungicide sensitivity of Fusarium graminearum

5 years ago

Regulatory roles of introns in fungicide sensitivity of Fusarium graminearum

Yanjun Li, Yiping Hou, Xiaojing Jia, Mingguo Zhou, Dongming Chen, Yuanye Zhu, Shunwen Luo, Yabing Duan

Although the roles of introns have been much debated in eukaryotic organisms, none of them have been functionally characterized in Fusarium graminearum. In this study, we characterized the roles of introns in regulation of fungicide-sensitivity of F. graminearum. β2tub, cyp51A and myosin-5 are important target genes of benzimidazoles, triazoles and cyanoacrylates, respectively. To explore the sensitivity regulation functions of introns in target genes, several detailed deletion studies were completed on the intronic regions of β2tub, cyp51A, myosin-5. Phenotypic analyses showed that deletion of the 4th intron from β2tub gene (designated β2Δi4), the sole intron from cyp51A gene (cyp51A-Δi) and the 2nd intron from myosin-5 gene (myo5-Δi2) exhibited an increased sensitivity to corresponding fungicides. In contrast, deletion of the 1st or 2nd intron from β2tub gene exhibited a decreased sensitivity to carbendazim. qRT-PCR showed that the mRNA transcript levels of target genes were significantly down-regulated in β2Δi4, cyp51A-Δi and myo5-Δi2 , respectively. Meanwhile, western blot assays revealed that the protein expression levels of β2tub was also dramatically reduced in β2Δi4, but accumulated in β2Δi1 and β2Δi2. Overall, our results indicate that introns in target genes significantly regulate the fungicide-sensitivity by influencing expression of the corresponding resident genes in F. graminearum. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Publisher URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/resolve/doi

DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.13863