rmtA-Dependent Transcriptome and Its Role in Secondary Metabolism Environmental Stress and Virulence in Aspergillus flavus

摘要

colonizes numerous oil seed crops such as maize, peanuts, treenuts and cottonseed worldwide, contaminating them with aflatoxins and other harmful toxins. Previously our lab characterized the gene , which encodes an arginine methyltransferase in , and demonstrated its role governing the expression of regulators in the aflatoxin gene cluster and subsequent synthesis of toxin. Furthermore, our studies revealed that also controls conidial and sclerotial development implicating it as an epigenetic regulator in . To confirm this, we performed a RNA sequencing analysis to ascertain the extent of ’s influence on the transcriptome of . In this analysis we identified over 2000 genes that were -dependent, including over 200 transcription factor genes, as well as an uncharacterized secondary metabolite gene cluster possibly responsible for the synthesis of an epidithiodiketopiperazine-like compound. Our results also revealed -dependent genes involved in multiple types of abiotic stress response in . Importantly, hundreds of genes active during maize infection were also regulated by . In addition, in the animal infection model, was dispensable for virulence, however forced overexpression of increased mortality with respect to the wild type.