Identifying global regulators of effector gene expression in the rice blast fungus

稻瘟病菌是水稻稻瘟病的病原菌，是影响世界水稻生产的最严重的病害之一。稻瘟病菌也会引起小麦稻瘟病，这种疾病现在威胁着南美和南亚的小麦生产。在植物感染过程中，稻瘟病菌经历了大量效应蛋白的差异表达和分泌，其中许多通过特定的分泌途径被引导到植物细胞中。M.真菌具有大量的效应蛋白，在许多分离物中存在多达400个效应基因，这是植物病原真菌的共同特征。目前尚不清楚这样一个大家族的效应子编码基因是如何被调控的。本项目将使用一种新的正向遗传筛选方法来鉴定稻瘟病菌中效应子基因表达的转录调控因子，该方法选择影响已知效应子基因时间表达模式的突变。这个屏幕已经被证明是成功的，在确定转录调节，并提供了相当大的潜力，在确定许多关键的调节效应基因的表达。该项目将寻求定义控制植物感染的转录电路，该病毒是世界上最具经济意义的植物病原体之一。

Magnaporthe oryzae is the causal agent of rice blast, one of the most serious diseases affecting rice cultivation around the world. The fungus also causes wheat blast, a disease that now threatens wheat production in South America and South Asia.During plant infection, the rice blast fungus undergoes differential expression and secretion of a large set of effector proteins, many of which are directed into plant cells using a specific secretory pathway. M. oryzae possesses a large repertoire of effector proteins, with as many as 400 effector genes present in many isolates and this is a common feature of plant pathogenic fungi. How such a large family of effector-encoding genes is regulated is currently unknown.This project will identify transcriptional regulators of effector gene expression in the rice blast fungus using a novel forward genetic screen that selects for mutations that affect the temporal expression patterns of known effector genes. This screen has already proven successful in identifying transcriptional regulators and offers considerable potential in identifying many of the key regulators of effector gene expression. The project will seek to define the transcriptional circuitry that governs plant infection by one of the world's most economically important plant pathogens.