Transposable elements impact the population divergence of rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae
Lianyu Lin,
Ting Sun,
Jiayuan Guo,
Lili Lin,
Meilian Chen,
Zhe Wang,
Jiandong Bao,
Justice Norvienyeku,
Dongmei Zhang,
Yijuan Han,
Guodong Lu,
Christopher Rensing,
Huakun Zheng,
Zhenhui Zhong,
Zonghua Wang
Affiliations
Lianyu Lin
State Key Laboratory of Ecological Pest Control for Fujian and Taiwan Crops, College of Life Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
Ting Sun
State Key Laboratory of Ecological Pest Control for Fujian and Taiwan Crops, College of Life Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
Jiayuan Guo
State Key Laboratory of Ecological Pest Control for Fujian and Taiwan Crops, College of Life Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
Lili Lin
State Key Laboratory of Ecological Pest Control for Fujian and Taiwan Crops, College of Life Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
Meilian Chen
Fuzhou Institute of Oceanography, Minjiang University, Fuzhou, China
Zhe Wang
State Key Laboratory of Ecological Pest Control for Fujian and Taiwan Crops, College of Life Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
Jiandong Bao
State Key Laboratory for Managing Biotic and Chemical Treats to the Quality and Safety of Agro-Products, Institute of Plant Protection and Microbiology, Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou, China
Justice Norvienyeku
Key Laboratory of Green Prevention and Control of Tropical Plant Diseases and Pests, Ministry of Education, College of Plant Protection, Hainan University, Haikou, China
Dongmei Zhang
State Key Laboratory of Ecological Pest Control for Fujian and Taiwan Crops, College of Life Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
Yijuan Han
Fuzhou Institute of Oceanography, Minjiang University, Fuzhou, China
Guodong Lu
State Key Laboratory of Ecological Pest Control for Fujian and Taiwan Crops, College of Life Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
Christopher Rensing
Institute of Environmental Microbiology, College of Resource and Environment, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
Huakun Zheng
State Key Laboratory of Ecological Pest Control for Fujian and Taiwan Crops, College of Life Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
Zhenhui Zhong
State Key Laboratory of Ecological Pest Control for Fujian and Taiwan Crops, College of Life Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
Zonghua Wang
State Key Laboratory of Ecological Pest Control for Fujian and Taiwan Crops, College of Life Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
ABSTRACTDynamic transposition of transposable elements (TEs) in fungal pathogens has significant impact on genome stability, gene expression, and virulence to the host. In Magnaporthe oryzae, genome plasticity resulting from TE insertion is a major driving force leading to the rapid evolution and diversification of this fungus. Despite their importance in M. oryzae population evolution and divergence, our understanding of TEs in this context remains limited. Here, we conducted a genome-wide analysis of TE transposition dynamics in the 11 most abundant TE families in M. oryzae populations. Our results show that these TEs have specifically expanded in recently isolated M. oryzae rice populations, with the presence/absence polymorphism of TE insertions highly concordant with population divergence on Geng/Japonica and Xian/Indica rice cultivars. Notably, the genes targeted by clade-specific TEs showed clade-specific expression patterns and are involved in the pathogenic process, suggesting a transcriptional regulation of TEs on targeted genes. Our study provides a comprehensive analysis of TEs in M. oryzae populations and demonstrates a crucial role of recent TE bursts in adaptive evolution and diversification of the M. oryzae rice-infecting lineage.IMPORTANCEMagnaporthe oryzae is the causal agent of the destructive blast disease, which caused massive loss of yield annually worldwide. The fungus diverged into distinct clades during adaptation toward the two rice subspecies, Xian/Indica and Geng/Japonica. Although the role of TEs in the adaptive evolution was well established, mechanisms underlying how TEs promote the population divergence of M. oryzae remain largely unknown. In this study, we reported that TEs shape the population divergence of M. oryzae by differentially regulating gene expression between Xian/Indica-infecting and Geng/Japonica-infecting populations. Our results revealed a TE insertion-mediated gene expression adaption that led to the divergence of M. oryzae population infecting different rice subspecies.
