Oomycete Metabolism Is Highly Dynamic and Reflects Lifestyle Adaptations

Abstract

The selective pressure of pathogen-host symbiosis drives adaptations. How these interactions shape the metabolism of pathogens is largely unknown. Here, we use comparative genomics to systematically analyze the metabolic networks of oomycetes, a diverse group of eukaryotes that includes saprotrophs as well as animal and plant pathogens, with the latter causing devastating diseases with significant economic and/or ecological impacts. In our analyses of 44 oomycete species, we uncover considerable variation in metabolism that can be linked to lifestyle differences. Comparisons of metabolic gene content reveal that plant pathogenic oomycetes have a bipartite metabolism consisting of a conserved core and an accessory set. The accessory set can be associated with the degradation of defense compounds produced by plants when challenged by pathogens. Obligate biotrophic oomycetes have smaller metabolic networks, and taxonomically distantly related biotrophic lineages display convergent evolution by repeated gene losses in both the conserved as well as the accessory set of metabolisms. When investigating to what extent the metabolic networks in obligate biotrophs differ from those in hemibiotrophic plant pathogens, we observe that the losses of metabolic enzymes in obligate biotrophs are not random and that gene losses predominantly influence the terminal branches of the metabolic networks. Our analyses represent the first metabolism-focused comparison of oomycetes at this scale and will contribute to a better understanding of the evolution of oomycete metabolism in relation to lifestyle adaptation. Numerous oomycete species are devastating plant pathogens that cause major damage in crops and natural ecosystems. Their interactions with hosts are shaped by strong selection, but how selection affects adaptation of the primary metabolism to a pathogenic lifestyle is not yet well established. By pan-genome and metabolic network analyses of distantly related oomycete pathogens and their nonpathogenic relatives, we reveal considerable lifestyle- and lineage-specific adaptations. This study contributes to a better understanding of metabolic adaptations in pathogenic oomycetes in relation to lifestyle, host, and environment, and the findings will help in pinpointing potential targets for disease control. [Graphic: see text] Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.

Keywords

• metabolic adaptations
• metabolism
• oomycetes
• pathogens