Plant pathogenic fungi hijack phosphate signaling with conserved enzymatic effectors

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mccombe, Carl L.; Wegner, Alex; Wirtz, Louisa; Zamora, Chenie S.; Casanova, Florencia; Aditya, Shouvik; Greenwood, Julian R.; de Paula, Samuel; England, Eleanor; Shang, Sascha; Ericsson, Daniel J.; Oliveira-Garcia, Ely; Williams, Simon J.; Schaffrath, Ulrich
• 署名单位: Australian National University; RWTH Aachen University; Louisiana State University System; Louisiana State University; Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Organisation; Australian Synchrotron
• 刊物名称: SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0036-9345
• DOI: 10.1126/science.adl5764
• 发表日期: 2025-02-28
• 页码: 955-962
• 关键词: rice blast fungus; structure refinement; gene; starvation; genome; perception; expression; proteins; synthase; immunity

摘要

Inorganic phosphate (Pi) is essential for life, and plant cells monitor Pi availability by sensing inositol pyrophosphate (PP-InsP) levels. In this work, we describe the hijacking of plant phosphate sensing by a conserved family of Nudix hydrolase effectors from pathogenic Magnaporthe and Colletotrichum fungi. Structural and enzymatic analyses of the Nudix effector family demonstrate that they selectively hydrolyze PP-InsP. Gene deletion experiments of Nudix effectors in Magnaporthe oryzae, Colletotrichum higginsianum, and Colletotrichum graminicola indicate that PP-InsP hydrolysis substantially enhances disease symptoms in diverse pathosystems. Further, we show that this conserved effector family induces phosphate starvation signaling in plants. Our study elucidates a molecular mechanism, used by multiple phytopathogenic fungi, that manipulates the highly conserved plant phosphate sensing pathway to exacerbate disease.