septation of infectious hyphae is critical for appressoria formation and virulence in the smut fungus ustilago maydis传染性菌丝的分隔作用是至关重要的黑穗病菌附着胞的形成和毒性的黑粉菌属maydis.pdfVIP

Septation of Infectious Hyphae Is Critical for Appressoria Formation and Virulence in the Smut Fungus Ustilago Maydis 1. 2. ¨ 1 1,3 ¨ 1 ¨ Johannes Freitag , Daniel Lanver , Christian Bohmer , Kay Oliver Schink , Michael Bolker , Bjorn Sandrock1* 1 Department of Biology, Philipps-University Marburg, Marburg, Germany, 2 Max-Planck-Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Department of Organismic Interactions, Marburg, Germany, 3 Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Cancer Research, The Norwegian Radium Hospital, Oslo, Norway Abstract Differentiation of hyphae into specialized infection structures, known as appressoria, is a common feature of plant pathogenic fungi that penetrate the plant cuticle. Appressorium formation in U. maydis is triggered by environmental signals but the molecular mechanism of this hyphal differentiation is largely unknown. Infectious hyphae grow on the leaf surface by inserting regularly spaced retraction septa at the distal end of the tip cell leaving empty sections of collapsed hyphae behind. Here we show that formation of retraction septa is critical for appressorium formation and virulence in U. maydis. We demonstrate that the diaphanous-related formin Drf1 is necessary for actomyosin ring formation during septation of infectious hyphae. Drf1 acts as an effector of a Cdc42 GTPase signaling module, which also consists of the Cdc42-specific guanine nucleotide exchange factor Don1 and the Ste20-like kinase Don3. Deletion of drf1, don1 or don3 abolished formation of retraction septa resulting in reduced virulence. Appressorium formation in these mutants was not completely blocked but inf