Genomes of obligate plant pathogens reveal adaptations for obligate parasitism

摘要

Many destructive crop diseases are caused by filamentous microbes from the kingdoms Fungi (e.g., ascomycetes and basidomycetes) and Stramenopila (oomycetes). Many of these pathogens exploit plants by extracting nutrients from living plant cells (biotrophy) (1). In some cases, biotrophic pathogens have evolved to a state of absolute dependency on their hosts.