Verticillium nonalfalfae, formerly V. albo-atrum, is a phytopathogenic ascomycete, which causes disease of the vascular tissue of various plants named verticillium wilt. In Slovenia, the most damage is done by Verticillium nonalfafae on hops (Humulus lupulus, L.). Apart from phytosanitary measures, the most effective approach for disease control is the cultivation of resistant varieties. The key to the development of new measures is knowledge of the factors of fungal pathogenicity, especially their secretory proteins, such as effectors, enzymes and toxins. In this doctoral study, we aimed to determine V. nonalfalfae candidate effectors, by analysing the available genomic and proteomic data, and the results of RNA-Seq experiments, and to confirm them with mutational analysis. From the annotated genetic models of V. nonalfafae (9269), we initially identified in silico secretome (944) enriched with enzymes involved in the degradation of cell walls, with proteases, lipases, cutinases and oxidoreductases, which corresponds to the hemibiotrophic life style of V. nonalfalfae. We further identified gene models expressed in planta (766), predicted candidate secretory effector proteins (263), and selected the best candidates based on the properties of already confirmed fungal effectors. We determined the expression of the most promising (44) candidates by RT-qPCR in resistant and susceptible varieties of hop after infection with V. nonalfalfae. Using the ATMT method, we prepared five deletion mutants of candidates with the highest expression, and artificially inoculated susceptible varieties of hop. Disease symptoms were assessed with a disease severity index and rAUDPC. The bioinformatic pipeline for determination of effectors proved to be relatively effective, since we determined previously verified V. nonalfalfae effectors VnaSSP4.2 and VnaUn.279. The deletion mutant ΔVna1.565 showed delayed disease symptoms and ΔVna8.691 showed increased virulence, while the remaining three deletion mutants did not show statistically significant differences compared to the wild type fungus, despite their high expression in planta. Their potential role in the pathogenesis of fungi is discussed.
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