Quand un gène d'avirulence en cache un autre : analyse de l'interaction entre AvrLm3 et AvrLm4-7 chez Leptosphaeria maculans

摘要

Leptosphaeria maculans is a Dothideomycete responsible for stem canker on oilseed rape (Brassica napus). Genetic control, encompassing mostly the use of major resistance genes, is the most effective method to control this pathogen. When the first cultivars harboring Rlm7 have been deployed in the early 2000's, all of the European isolates were avirulent towards this resistance gene and AvrLm3 was considered to be absent from the populations. In 2012, Daverdin et al. showed that L. maculans has the ability to rapidly overcome the Rlm7 resistance whenever a strong selection pressure is applied. The phenotyping of isolates sampled by Daverdin et al. also showed that more than 98 % of the isolates virulent towards Rlm7 had become avirulent towards Rlm3. This result led to the hypothesis that the presence of AvrLm4-7 can suppress AvrLm3 recognition by Rlm3 and this was validated by the complementation of an isolate avirulent towards Rlm3 with a functional allele of AvrLm4-7. AvrLm3 is genetically linked to AvrLm4-7, at a distance of 20 cM. However, no candidate gene was identified before the beginning of my PhD. The objective of my PhD project was to identify AvrLm3, in order to better understand the antagonistic relationship between AvrLm3 and AvrLm4-7 phenotypes. The combination of genetic and genomic approaches (genetic mapping, RNA-seq, de novo sequencing of an isolate avirulent towards Rlm3 and BAC clone sequencing) allowed me to identify AvrLm3, whose sequence was absent from the reference genome assembly. AvrLm3 has common characteristics with others genes encoding fungal effector: it codes for a small, cysteine-rich protein, is highly expressed at early infection stages and shows no homology with others fungal genes. Although the mechanism allowing the suppression of AvrLm3 recognition due to the presence of AvrLm4-7 has not been elucidated, several hypotheses were invalidated: the presence of AvrLm4-7 has no impact on AvrLm3 expression and the two avirulence proteins do not interact physically.The sampling of field isolates in 2012 and 2013 showed the currently ongoing breakdown of Rlm7, with ca. 10% of virulent isolates, and the resurgence of the AvrLm3 phenotype in these populations, only 0.5 % of isolates being virulent towards both Rlm3 and Rlm7. A large collection of isolates from worldwide origin was genotyped for AvrLm3. It revealed that all isolates possess AvrLm3, with a high level of allelic diversity. The resurgence of the avirulent phenotype towards Rlm3 following the breakdown the Rlm7, along with the important role of AvrLm3 and AvrLm4-7 in fungal fitness, suggest that the antagonistic relationship between these two avirulence phenotypes could be an opportunity to propose original strategies to increase the durability of Rlm3 and Rlm7, by alternating both resistance genes at the landscape level or using pyramiding strategies. However, we identified novel isoforms of AvrLm4-7 allowing the fungus to escape Rlm7 recognition, while maintaining the suppression of Rlm3 recognition effective. This work allowed to better characterize an unusual gene-for-gene relationship. Indeed, only one other example of antagonism between avirulence phenotypes has been identified to date, in the phytopathogenic fungus Fusarium oxysporum (Houterman et al., 2008). The diversity of mechanisms allowing L. maculans to overcome the Rlm3 resistance illustrates perfectly the complexity of the arms race between plants and pathogens.