Phosphatase‐associated protein MoTip41 interacts with the phosphatase MoPpe1 to mediate crosstalk between TOR and cell wall integrity signalling during infection by the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae

Abstract

Summary The type 2A (PP2A) and type 2A‐like (PP4 and PP6) serine/threonine phosphatases participate in a variety of cellular processes, such as cell cycle progression, signal transduction and apoptosis. Previously, we reported that the PP6 catalytic subunit MoPpe1, which interacts with and is suppressed by type 2A associated protein of 42 kDa (MoTap42), an essential protein involved in the target of rapamycin (TOR) signalling pathway, has important roles in development, virulence and activation of the cell wall integrity (CWI) pathway in the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae. Here, we show that Tap42‐interacting protein 41 (MoTip41) mediates crosstalk between the TOR and CWI signalling pathways; and participates in the TOR pathway via interaction with MoPpe1, but not MoTap42. The deletion of MoTIP41 resulted in disruption of CWI signalling, autophagy, vegetative growth, appressorium function and plant infection, as well as increased sensitivity to rapamycin. Further investigation revealed that MoTip41 modulates activation of the CWI pathway in response to infection by interfering with the interaction between MoTap42 and MoPpe1. These findings enhance our understanding of how crosstalk between TOR and CWI signalling modulates the development and pathogenicity of M. oryzae.

Genome-Wide Analysis of Nutrient Signaling Pathways Conserved in Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi

“…The previous studies reported that the SNF1, cAMP-PKA and TOR signaling pathways regulate sporulation in numerous species of filamentous fungi, at the cellular and molecular levels [ 30 , 185 , 200 , 237 , 238 ]. Rapamycin treatment and inactivation TOR can induce the biogenesis of lipid droplet required for triacylglycerol accumulation, whereas PKA regulates the degradation of triacylglycerol and SNF1 regulates the lipid mobilization required for fungal development and sporulation [ 29 , 92 , 112 , 185 , 187 , 200 ].…”

MoWhi2 regulates appressorium formation and pathogenicity via the MoTor signalling pathway in Magnaporthe oryzae

“…MoRS3 , which encodes a ribosomal subunit, is transcriptionally regulated based on MoTor activity. Furthermore, the gene expression levels of MoTOR and the MoTOR ‐regulating gene MoRS3 were examined by quantitative reverse transcription PCR (RT‐qPCR) (Qian et al, 2020 ). The results showed that both MoTOR and MoRS3 were up‐regulated in the Δ Mowhi2 and Δ Mopsr1 strains compared with those in the WT strain (Figure 8c,d ), suggesting that the transcriptional level and enzyme activity were up‐regulated after knockout of MoWHI2 and MoPSR1 .…”

“…The TOR kinase complex is an evolutionarily conserved protein kinase, coordinating nutrients and energy to regulate cell proliferation, the cell cycle, cell wall integrity, and cell metabolic activities by interacting with different subunits (Gonzalez & Hall, 2017;Qian et al, 2018Qian et al, , 2020. Recently, it has been confirmed that TOR signalling functions in controlling appressorium formation in M. oryzae.…”

MoErv29 promotes apoplastic effector secretion contributing to virulence of the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae

“…The empty green fluorescent protein (GFP) construct was obtained in our previous work (Qian et al, 2020). The MoSLP1 DNA fragment fused with the S tag was inserted into the pXY203 construct (MoSLP1-S) containing the hygromycin resistance, and the MoERV29 DNA fragment fused with GFP (MoERV29-GFP) was inserted into the pYF11 construct containing the bleomycin (R25001; Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA) resistance gene.…”

“…For complementation, the fragment containing the entire MoERV29 gene coding region and its native promoter New Phytologist (2022) 233: 1289-1302 www.newphytologist.com Ó 2021 The Authors New Phytologist Ó 2021 New Phytologist Foundation region was amplified using PCR with primers (Table S1) before insertion into pYF11 and introduced into the mutant strain. Other gene deletion mutants and corresponding complemented strains were obtained using the same strategy (Qian et al, 2020).…”